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  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

  Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=.

  These lectures each had a set of associated slides, a complete
  list of which can be found on pages 143-152 at the end of the
  book. These slide sets were sold separately and are not part of
  the book. Some of the slides (those highlighted in =bold= in the
  slide list) were inserted as illustrations in the original book,
  and the captions of these illustrations are reproduced in this
  etext.

  The numbers in the right margin of the etext are the numbers of
  the associated slides. Several of these margin slide numbers are
  in parentheses ( ) to indicate that this particular slide is being
  shown for a second time at this point in the lecture.

  There are no Footnotes in this book.

  Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.




  AUSTRALASIA

  EIGHT LECTURES

  Prepared for
  The Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office
  by
  A. J. SARGENT, M.A.


  LONDON
  GEORGE PHILIP & SON, LTD., 32, FLEET STREET
  Liverpool: PHILIP, SON & NEPHEW, Ltd., South Castle Street
  1913

  (_All rights reserved_)




THE VISUAL INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE

APPOINTED BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES


  THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF MEATH, K.P., Chairman.

  THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR CECIL CLEMENTI SMITH, G.C.M.G.

  SIR JOHN STRUTHERS, K.C.B., LL.D., Secretary to the Scotch
  Education Department.

  SIR CHARLES HOLROYD, Director of the National Gallery.

  SIR PHILIP HUTCHINS, K.C.S.I., late Member of the Council of
  the Secretary of State for India.

  SIR EVERARD IM THURN, K.C.M.G., C.B., late Governor of Fiji and
  High Commissioner for the Western Pacific.

  SIR CHARLES LUCAS, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.

  DR. H. FRANK HEATH, C.B., of the Board of Education.

  A. BERRIEDALE KEITH, D.C.L., of the Colonial Office.

  H. J. MACKINDER, M.P., lately Director of the London School of
  Economics and Political Science.

  W. H. MERCER, C.M.G., Crown Agent for the Colonies.

  PROFESSOR MICHAEL E. SADLER, C.B., LL.D., Vice-Chancellor of
  the University of Leeds.


A set of Lantern Slides has been prepared in connection with this
book, and is sold on behalf of the Committee by Messrs. Newton
& Co., 37, King Street, Covent Garden, W.C. (late of 3, Fleet
Street, E.C.), from whom copies of this book can be obtained.
The complete set of 489 Slides may be had for £39. The Slides
to accompany the several Lectures will be sold at the following
prices: First Lecture, £4 3_s._; Second Lecture, £5 5_s._; Third
Lecture, £4 12_s._; Fourth Lecture, £5 9_s._; Fifth Lecture, £4
13_s._ 6_d._; Sixth Lecture, £5 12_s._ 6_d._; Seventh Lecture, £5
5_s._; Eighth Lecture, £5 4_s._ The Slides will also be sold in
sets in which the maps alone will be coloured. The prices in this
case will be--for the complete set of 489 Slides, £25 10_s._;
First Lecture, £2 17_s._; Second Lecture, £3 6_s._ 6_d._; Third
Lecture, £3 5_s._; Fourth Lecture, £3 10_s._; Fifth Lecture, £3
7_s._ 6_d._; Sixth Lecture, £3 7_s._ 6_d._; Seventh Lecture, £3
7_s._ 6_d._; Eighth Lecture, £3 5_s._ The Slides sold on behalf
of the Committee may now be purchased separately in batches of
not less than two dozen.


The Slides in this Series are Copyright.




PREFACE


These Lectures, like the last series, have been written for
the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office by Mr.
A. J. Sargent, and have been revised at the offices of the
High Commissioners for the Commonwealth of Australia and New
Zealand. The lecture on the Pacific has been revised by Sir
Everard im Thurn. The slides are derived from pictures painted
and photographs taken by Mr. A. Hugh Fisher on behalf of the
Committee, supplemented by photographs supplied from various
sources. The Committee wish to acknowledge the great help which
they have received from the High Commissioners and Agents-General
and their staffs in the matter of slides, and in addition
their acknowledgments are due to, among others, the Honourable
Victor Nelson Hood, the Agricultural Departments of Queensland
and Western Australia, the Secretary to the Commissioner for
Queensland Railways, and the Government Geologist of Western
Australia.

  MEATH.

  _November, 1912._




PUBLICATIONS OF THE VISUAL INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE


A. Seven Lectures on the United Kingdom.

By Mr. H. J. MACKINDER.

In the following Editions issued on behalf of the Committee by
Messrs. Waterlow & Sons, Ltd.:--

  =1. Eastern Colonies Edition, Sept., 1905.=

  In use in Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, and Hong Kong.

  =2. Mauritius Edition, June, 1906.=

  In use in Mauritius.

  =3. West African Edition, Sept., 1906.=

  In use in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and Southern Nigeria.

  =4. West India Edition, Sept., 1906.=

  In use in Trinidad, British Guiana, and Jamaica.

  =5. Indian Edition, March, 1907.=

  In use in the following Provinces:--Madras, Bombay, Bengal, the
  United Provinces, the Punjab, Burma, Eastern Bengal and Assam,
  the Central Provinces, the North West Province, and British
  Baluchistan.

  =6. Indian Edition, for use in the United Kingdom, Jan., 1909.
  Price One Shilling net.=


B. Eight Lectures on India.

By Mr. H. J. MACKINDER.

Published by Messrs. GEORGE PHILIP & SON, LTD., 32, Fleet Street,
London, E.C., price 8_d._ net in paper covers, or 1_s._ net in
cloth.

  [=A Lecturer’s Edition= has also been issued, price in cloth,
  1_s._ net, and may be had of MESSRS. NEWTON & CO., 3, Fleet
  Street, E.C.]


Six Lectures on the Sea Road to the East.

By Mr. A. J. SARGENT.


Eight Lectures on Australasia.

By Mr. A. J. SARGENT.

Published by Messrs. GEORGE PHILIP & SON, LTD., price 8_d._ net
in paper covers, 1_s._ net in cloth.

  [In these two books the ordinary edition and the lecturer’s
  edition are combined.]




CONTENTS


      LECTURE I
                                          PAGE
  AUSTRALASIA                                1


      LECTURE II

  NEW SOUTH WALES, WITH PAPUA               17


      LECTURE III

  QUEENSLAND                                36


      LECTURE IV

  VICTORIA AND TASMANIA                     51


      LECTURE V

  SOUTH AUSTRALIA AND WESTERN AUSTRALIA     67


      LECTURE VI

  NEW ZEALAND--SOUTH ISLAND                 84


      LECTURE VII

  NEW ZEALAND--NORTH ISLAND                103


      LECTURE VIII

  FIJI AND THE WESTERN PACIFIC             122


_NOTE.--The reader is asked to bear in mind the fact that these
lectures are illustrated with lantern slides. The numbers in the
margin of the text are the numbers of the slides, of which a
complete list will be found on pp. 143-152._


[Illustration:

  _Copyright._)          (_See page 7._

NATIVE BEAR.]

[Illustration:

  _Copyright._)          (_See page 10._

GUM TREE.]

[Illustration:

  _Copyright._)          (_See page 9._

EMU.]

[Illustration:

  _Copyright._)          (_See page 12._

NATIVES FISHING.]




  LECTURE I

  AUSTRALASIA


  For nearly two thousand years the existence of a great Southland,
  in the ocean of the southern hemisphere, corresponding to the
  land mass of the Old World in the northern, was a matter of doubt
  and dispute among geographers. In the sixteenth century, this
  land begins to appear vaguely on globes and charts; possibly
  the information was due to the Malays and Arabs, who were
  skilful sailors and made long voyages in the Pacific and Indian
  Oceans. It has been thought that the Portuguese, approaching the
  Malay region from the west, while the Spaniards came from the
  east, may have been acquainted with the northern coast of the
  new continent; since they certainly had some knowledge of the
  northern coast of New Guinea early in the sixteenth century.
  But our first definite information may be said to date from the
  beginning of the seventeenth century, when a Spanish exploring
  expedition, under de Quiros and de Torres, sailed across the
  Pacific and discovered the New Hebrides group. One of the islands
  they named la Australia del Espiritu Santo, under the idea
  that it formed part of the great southern mainland. De Quiros
  then sailed back to Mexico, but Torres continued his voyage
  northwestward through the straits which still bear his name, and
  so to the Spanish Possessions in the Philippines.

  But the day of Spain as a sea power was passing away, and it was
  to the Dutch traders that the western world owed its first real
  acquaintance with Australia. The early discoveries were often
  accidental and did not lead to settlement or regular intercourse
  with the natives. This was due partly to the backward state of
  the science of navigation, partly to the fact that the voyagers
  on long expeditions usually lost from half to three-quarters of
  their crews from disease. The Dutch had the advantage of a local
  base, as they were already firmly established in the East Indian
  Islands; so that Australia was really discovered from the Indies.

  Trade, not exploration, was the main motive of the Dutch. So,
  in the early part of the seventeenth century, trading ships
  were dispatched from Batavia by the Dutch East-India Company to
  explore the north and west coasts of Australia.

  We find all along these coasts the names of the ships still
  surviving, as in Arnhem Land and Cape Leuwin; those of the
  captains, as in Dirk Hartog Island, Houtmans Abrolhos, Edels Land
  and Nuyts Land; while the Gulf of Carpentaria is a memorial to
  Peter Carpenter, the then Governor of the great trading company.

  The most important voyage of all was that of Abel Tasman, in         1
  1642. He started from Mauritius, to discover a passage south
  of the Australian continent; and after landing in Van Diemen’s
  Land, now Tasmania, he sailed across the Tasman Sea and up the
  west coast of New Zealand, and so back to Batavia by way of Tonga
  and the Fiji islands and the north coast of New Guinea. He left
  behind him another name, New Holland, for the whole continent.

  These names throughout Australasia bear witness to the skill and
  energy of the Dutch navigators; but they came only as traders,
  and the west coast of Australia, which they knew best, had little
  to attract them to permanent settlement. Sand and grass, hostile
  natives, and dangerous reefs marked by a series of shipwrecks
  sum up their impression of the new land. Here are two views of     2,3
  the coast; it does not seem attractive for sailors. We can quite
  understand why they made no effort to open up a trade like that
  of the East Indies, especially as they missed the east coast,
  the most promising region for European settlement. Here are two
  charts showing our knowledge of Australia, the first soon after
  Tasman’s voyage, the second nearly a century later.                4,5

  [Illustration: MAP OF PIETER GOOS, 1660.]

  The discovery of the east coast was to come more than a century
  later; it was made by an Englishman, at a time when England
  was looking for new outlets, both for trade and settlement, as
  an offset to her losses in the continent of North America. It
  is true that Dampier visited the west coast towards the end of
  the seventeenth century, and wrote an account of the animals,
  natives, and plants; but he does not seem to have been much more
  favourably impressed than the Dutch, and nothing came of his
  visit.

  [Illustration: MAP OF R. DE VAGONDY, 1752.]

  But in the eighteenth century England and France were the great
  rivals in colonisation, and voyages of discovery and plans of
  annexation became the order of the day. It was a revival, in a
  less forcible though more scientific form, of the old rivalry
  with Spain and Portugal in the sixteenth century. State influence
  was behind the explorers, as it had been in the days of Drake and
  his freebooters. Captain Cook sailed in a ship belonging to the
  Royal Navy, and not in a trader. In our own country his memory
  is still kept green in the little port of Whitby where he served
  his apprenticeship to the sea, and where the ships were built in
  which he made his great voyages of discovery; in the Antipodes it
  is for ever associated with the beginnings of a great and growing  6,7
  Empire. Here we see his statue in Sydney, and here is a picture
  of his ship, the _Endeavour_, approaching New Zealand.

  Cook came westward, across the Pacific, with an expedition in
  1769, to observe the Transit of Venus at Tahiti, and then sailed     8
  south-west to New Zealand. He sighted land at Poverty Bay and
  sailed south as far as Cape Turnagain; then he went right round
  the North Island and through Cook Strait, until the Cape was
  again sighted, scattering English names and charting the coast
  as he passed. Next he circumnavigated the South Island, steering
  outside Stewart Island, which he imagined to be a peninsula; and
  so to Cape Farewell, in the north-west corner of South Island.
  He had obtained a fairly accurate idea of the nature of the
  coast, and had proved that New Zealand was not connected with the
  supposed Antarctic continent.

  From Cape Farewell he struck westward, and sighted the mainland
  of Australia at Point Hicks, on April 19th, 1770, but failed
  to discover Bass Strait. From Point Hicks Cook sailed along
  the whole of the east coast to Cape York, giving to the bays
  and capes as he passed them the names of his crew, of British
  admirals, officials and politicians of all kinds at home.
  At various landing places he came into collision with the
  aborigines, and at Endeavour River he stayed for two months to
  repair his vessel which had been damaged through striking on the
  rocks. Finally, before sailing westward through Torres Strait, he
  landed on Possession Island and formally claimed the whole region
  discovered for the British Crown.

  When, in 1798, Flinders and Bass proved that Van Diemen’s
  Land was an island, the rough work of discovery was complete.
  Australia, New Zealand and many of the smaller islands were known
  and charted, and the discoveries of the Spaniards and Dutch
  were linked up, by the aid of a great deal of miscellaneous
  exploration carried out by the French navigators who followed us
  in the South of Australia, in New Zealand, and in the islands of
  the Pacific.

  The navigators, French and English, were in the habit of formally
  annexing the country wherever they landed; but annexation of this
  kind was of little value without effective occupation. This
  was to come later, during the course of the next half century.
  From 1800 onwards, we may say that the different parts of this
  vast region begin to have a separate and individual history and
  development, though behind all are the conditions common to most
  of the area, conditions which distinguish it sharply from the
  rest of the world even to-day, in spite of minor differences
  between its separate parts. There is ample room for variation,
  since the continent of Australia is about three-quarters the
  size of Europe, or seven times the area of Germany and France
  together; and it includes nearly every type of temperate and
  tropical climate.

  Whether we look at the animals, plants, or aborigines of
  Australia, we are at once struck with the fact that they belong
  to an entirely different order of life from that which we find
  in the other great continents. The whole region seems, from a
  very early age, to have been cut off effectively from the rest of
  the world, and to have developed along lines peculiar to itself;
  though since the advent of the white man we have the artificial
  introduction of European and other plants and animals, which bid
  fair in many cases to oust the native products, just as the white
  man has displaced the original inhabitants.

  The first animal which we naturally think of in connexion with
  Australia is the kangaroo. His family is large and varied, from      9
  the giant standing six feet high, and dangerous to attack, to the
  dwarf measured by a few inches. He is a creature of the wide open   10
  plains, living on grass, though in Queensland and New Guinea are
  to be found some which climb the tall gum trees and feed on their
  shoots. An ancestor of the present kangaroo, whose remains have
  been discovered, was a formidable monster standing twelve feet
  high.

  The kangaroo is merely the best known representative of a very
  large group, the marsupials or pouched animals. Closely allied
  to the kangaroo is the wombat, a clumsy badger-like animal which
  feeds on leaves and burrows in the ground; he is quite harmless,
  though, like the kangaroo, he had a huge ancestor who seems to
  have been as large as a rhinoceros. The bandicoots, ratlike
  burrowing animals, are his cousins many times removed.

  Next we have a group which looks very different but is really
  closely allied to the kangaroo: the _phalangers_, or opossums,
  as they are commonly called. The name is adopted from America       11
  but is applied in Australia to the wrong group, as we shall see
  later. Nothing is more misleading than the names given by white
  settlers, ignorant of botany or biology, to native plants or
  animals, generally on the ground of some fancied and superficial
  resemblance. The so-called opossums are found all over Australia
  and New Guinea and in many of the islands of the Pacific; but
  owing to the value of their fur they are becoming scarce in
  many districts. They live in trees, and some of the family have
  their legs connected by a membrane, so that they can glide from
  one branch to another. Hence the name flying squirrel; though
  they do not fly and have no connexion with the squirrel which we
  know. Here is another of the same group, the _koala_, or native
  bear; though he again has nothing to do with bears. He is a         12
  sleepy-looking animal, with no tail, and is not given to leaping
  or gliding; though his claws are useful for climbing the gum        13
  trees in which he lives. He is quite harmless, and a child can
  play with him, as we see here.

  Other members of the same great family are far from harmless:
  among them are the _dasyures_, or native cats, with dark bodies
  mostly spotted with white. Some smaller members of this family
  are called weasels and mice. To this family belongs also the
  Tasmanian Devil, whose portrait we have here; he is very fierce     14
  though small. A larger animal, the size of a retriever, is the
  so-called Tasmanian wolf; he is carnivorous, while most of the      15
  marsupials are vegetarian. It is rather doubtful whether he
  should be classed with the rest or go by himself.

  The only existing allies of the marsupials of Australia are to
  be found in the opossums and some other less known animals of
  South America; but the opossum of South America resembles less
  his Australian namesake than the other group, the _dasyures_. In
  Europe and Asia the marsupials existed, but only in very remote
  geological ages, as their remains prove. It has been argued from
  the existence of the opossum family in America that at some time
  there must have been a land connexion between Australia and South
  America, either by way of the islands of the Pacific or by an
  Antarctic continent. But the isolation of Australia must have
  been very ancient, since it has given time for the development of
  the enormous differences which we have seen among the individuals
  of the same family.

  Even these strange animals, old as they are, are not the most
  primitive to be found in Australia. The _ornithorhynchus_ or
  duck-billed platypus lives in a burrow by the river; it has teeth   16
  when young, but seems to lose these as it grows up. It is said
  to lay eggs like a reptile, though it is a true mammal. We are
  not surprised to learn that when the first stuffed specimen of
  this strange beast reached Europe it was thought to be a fraud,
  put together to deceive the ignorant and unwary. Another of these
  egg-laying animals is the _echidna_, or spiny ant-eater, which
  has a kind of beak for burrowing and a long sticky tongue to
  capture its prey. It has sharp spines and rolls itself into a
  ball like a hedgehog when attacked. In addition to these curious
  animals there are rats and mice and the dingo, or native dog, of    17
  a type more familiar to us. It is thought possible by some that
  the dingo, being so different from the other native animals, was
  introduced by man at some very early date.

  The typical Australian animals disappear as we travel away
  through the islands to the north, and the boundary line between
  Australia and Asia is usually drawn through the strait between
  Bali and Lombok, and then on between Celebes and Borneo; though
  it is much disputed whether Celebes belongs to the one region
  or the other. The division is only a narrow water strait, and
  we can understand that Asiatic birds would have no difficulty
  in crossing. On the other hand, as there is no great land mass
  to the south, there are no crowds of seasonal migrants from
  cooler regions, such as we find in the warmer countries of the
  northern hemisphere; so that the existing Australian birds are
  for the most part allied to the bright-coloured inhabitants of
  the tropics to the north. Some are peculiar to the region, such     18
  as the lyre birds with their wonderful tails, the emu, and the      19
  brush birds which bury their eggs in a mound of earth, leaving
  them to be hatched by the heat of the sun. Other birds, as the
  honey-eaters, though common in Australia, are found also in the
  neighbouring islands of the Pacific. Unfortunately, not content     20
  with the flowers of the gum trees, these birds now attack the
  fruit in the orchards and are becoming a nuisance in some
  districts. Finally we have the _kukuburra_ or laughing-jackass,     21
  one of the most popular and best known of all Australian birds.
  It belongs to the kingfisher tribe and is said to be a great
  destroyer of small snakes. Nor must we forget the black swan, one   22
  of the most striking and beautiful of all, and still to be found
  in large numbers in the lakes of Gippsland and in West Australia.

  Then we have lizards, snakes, and strange fish of all kinds,
  some peculiar to Australia, others, like the animals, allied
  to species found in Asia or South America. All the evidence
  afforded by the animal life of the continent points to a very
  remote connexion with the other continents, followed by a very
  long period of isolation during which the families of animals
  developed wide differences among themselves, together with
  special peculiarities suited to the conditions in which they
  lived.

  Now let us turn for a moment from the animal to the plant life
  of Australia. In the tropical parts of Queensland there are many
  plants which belong to the Malayan region as a whole; this we
  might expect. We may see palms growing even at Brisbane; while      23
  further north they form a dense forest, thoroughly tropical
  in appearance, with its creepers and undergrowth, as we see
  in these two pictures. But further south we meet more species       24
  peculiar to Australia, in the vegetable no less than in the         25
  animal world. The typical Australian plants are those specially
  adapted to resist hot sunshine with drought, and often sudden
  changes of temperature. All over the continent the gum trees        26
  give a special mark to the landscape of the forest. The leaves
  hang vertically, so as not to give a large exposure of surface
  to the hot sun, and are collected in dense clusters for the same
  purpose of protection; so that we miss much of the spreading
  shade of our English trees. The leaves, too, are alike on both
  sides, and the colour is more uniform than in our own trees, nor
  do they change colour and fall in autumn, but decay gradually on
  the stalk. The bark of many of the gums hangs in strips, thus
  spoiling the appearance of the huge trunk, for huge it is, rising
  to four hundred feet in some species. Owing to the character
  of the foliage the forests are more open than our own, except
  in the wetter parts where there is a dense undergrowth of fern
  and creeper. These districts are always near the coast. As we
  travel away from the coast the forest thins out, except along the
  watercourses, and becomes smaller and more stunted. In place of
  trees with leaves we find thorny scrub of various kinds, such as    27
  the mulga, whose leaves are replaced by woody spikes still more
  resistant to drought. Finally we reach the salt-bush and spinifex   28
  and wiry grasses of the desert interior. Often there is little      29
  but bare rock as in the pictures before us. The watercourses        30
  themselves may dry up in the hot season, leaving a desolate         31
  expanse of sand and stones, but the line of trees still marks the
  presence of moisture below.                                         32

  The huge gum trees are, as a rule, the main feature in the forest
  landscape, but this is varied by curiosities like the grass
  tree and the bottle tree; while in the moister regions, as in
  the forests of Gippsland, we find beautiful tree ferns of every     33
  kind. Here are specimens of grass trees and gums. Everywhere        34
  we find the acacia and the wattle with its sweet scent, the         35
  banksia shooting up into great trees, and the beautiful waratah;
  everywhere, too, where the rainfall is sufficient, flowers of the
  same order as those with which we are familiar in Europe grow in
  great profusion.

  So we see that there is great variety of vegetation in Australia,
  though the only native plants of much use to man are the gum
  trees, which we value for their dense hard woods. All else that
  is of value, both among plants and animals, has been introduced
  by the settlers, and many of the native types seem doomed to
  extinction.

  We may now be able to understand why this country of strange
  plants and animals had no attraction for the Dutch trader,
  especially in the drier west; in fact, it could have no trade
  until it had been settled by Europeans bringing with them
  European crops and animals. In India and Malaya there was already
  a basis for trade in some of the natural products of the region;
  while the natives were sufficiently advanced in civilisation to
  make commercial intercourse possible. It was far otherwise in
  Australia. The aborigines, as we found them, were as primitive
  as the plants and animals. They are not black, but a dark-brown
  people, and their hair is waved and silky, not curly like that of
  the negro. They are different also from the negro in the shape
  and build of the head and face. There are various theories as to
  their origin, but the nearest correspondence seems to be in some
  of the ancient hill tribes of India and the Veddas of Ceylon. At
  any rate they are quite different from the Malays, and equally
  also from the now extinct Tasmanians. The Tasmanians had woolly
  hair, and perhaps represented the remnants of an earlier and even
  less developed race than the invaders from the north.

  The native Australian, as the first European discoverers found
  him, was not an attractive being. He was looked on as little
  better than a wild beast and treated as such. This was partly
  due to ignorance of his language and customs. His mode of life
  was fitted by long adaptation to the peculiar conditions of his
  surroundings. He had developed no agriculture in his new home;
  not without reason, if we think of the agricultural possibilities
  of the country in the hands of a rude and backward people. He
  was equally without any of the useful animals, and had no means
  of procuring them. So he was reduced to the nomad life and to
  the utilisation of the wild roots and plants of the country and
  such small game as he could kill with his rude weapons. He was
  necessarily a hunter, with a temporary shelter for his home,        36
  often an overhanging rock as in this picture; and civilisation
  does not grow up in such conditions. Here we see some natives       37
  fishing, and here again are some armed men scouting in the bush.    38

  The hostility of the native to the European colonists often arose
  from their interference with his natural food supply, or to their
  careless ignorance of his semi-religious ideas or customs, such
  as the tabu.

  His only possible clothes were the skins of animals, and his
  weapons and tools all belonged to the Stone Age. The axe, knife,
  and hammer were in universal use, and long journeys were made to
  obtain the right kind of stone. This involved a certain amount of
  intercourse among the tribes. For weapons of offence the native
  had the club, and the spear tipped with bone or stone; while
  some tribes used a special spear-thrower. The boomerang was a
  curved bar of heavy wood, often five or six feet long, which was
  used for killing or stunning at a short distance. The smaller
  boomerang, which returns to the thrower, was merely a toy and
  used in sport; here we see it in use. The stone implements are      39
  all similar to those which are dug up in Europe, the relics of
  the Neolithic Age of man. One of the chief uses of the axe was to
  cut notches for climbing trees, in search of honey among other
  things; though they had another method which we see here.           40

  The natives were divided into tribes and sub-tribes, and had some
  form of tribal government, under headmen. In the south-east of
  the continent these chiefs had considerable authority and were
  sometimes treated by us as representing the tribe. Here is one
  of them, though he does not look imposing in his European dress.    41
  They had an elaborate social system and curious marriage customs
  about which the learned still dispute. They had a strong belief
  in spirits of various kinds, though it could hardly be called a
  religion, and a whole series of tales and legends handed down
  orally, some of them showing considerable power of imagination.
  They even had the beginnings of some ideas of art and ornament,     42
  as we can judge from the crude paintings shown here.                43

  The most interesting of their social customs was the corroboree,
  a great gathering for feasting and dancing, often combined with     44
  some religious or social ceremony. Such meetings represented the
  only real social intercourse of the people and tribes, except
  messages by ambassadors who were sacred everywhere.

  On the whole, then, they were not so low in the scale of
  civilisation as the early observers imagined. Even the language,
  with its many dialects, due to the absence of writing and the
  nomad life of the people, is elaborate and inflected like those
  of Europe.

  The native life in its original form is decaying, and survives
  chiefly in the interior and the west. Wherever white occupation
  has extended, the native is dying out; in fact, in some parts
  he survives only on the Government Reservations. Here are some      45
  of these survivors in Victoria. Here again, in Queensland, we       46
  see the native converted to European clothes, though he does not    47
  seem very comfortable in them. In this district, as in South and
  Western Australia, and the Northern Territory, they still exist
  in considerable number; but it is probable that there are less
  than 100,000 in all in the Commonwealth. In the census of 1911 an
  attempt was made to count them, and some 20,000 were found to be
  living in or near white settlements; only a vague estimate was
  possible in the case of the tribes of the interior, who still
  live their nomadic life in the more inaccessible parts of the
  country. But the area untouched by the white man grows smaller
  every year, and unless the native can change his character
  greatly, he is likely to die out in the north and west as in the
  south-east. In 1911 there were only about two thousand in New
  South Wales, hardly any in Victoria, and none at all in Tasmania.
  It was inevitable that the Australian native should be displaced
  from his hunting grounds. An area about equal to that of the
  United States could not be left in the sole occupation of a few
  thousand savages. Now, instead of the savage with his primitive
  tribal system, we have a white race, purely British in origin,
  with industry and agriculture of the most advanced type, and an
  elaborate political constitution of federated States. It is the
  utilisation, by the white man, of the resources of this vast area
  which we must study.

  We have seen something of the coast of this area; let us now try
  for a moment to picture it as a whole. The map shows us an oblong
  block, which lies east and west, on either side of the Tropic of    48
  Capricorn. On the north, two peninsulas, Arnhem Land and Cape
  York, project towards the Equator; between them is the Gulf of
  Carpentaria, the only deep indentation in the whole continent. On
  the south, Victoria, continued by Tasmania, stretches into the
  cool waters of the Southern Ocean. A coastal plain, broad in the
  north, narrow elsewhere, fringes a plateau which occupies the
  greater part of the oblong. The plain is narrowest in the east,
  and the plateau edge most marked, so that it resembles a series
  of mountain ranges. Rivers, short for the most part, plunge down
  the seaward edge of the plateau. The only large area of lowland
  is in the south-east, drained by a group of long rivers and
  shared by four of the Australian States. Some of these rivers
  lose themselves in the salt lakes and marshes of the inland basin
  of Lake Eyre; the rest, gathered up by the Murray, reach the sea
  at the one point where the plateau rim disappears. The tropical
  lowlands, the temperate coast-plains, the plateau and the long
  inward slopes of the Murray system are the main features which we
  shall find recurring in the geography of the various States.

         *       *       *       *       *

  So far we have dealt only with Australia. New Zealand shows to
  some extent the peculiarities which mark Australia off from the
  rest of the world, but on the whole the differences between
  these two sections of Australasia are more noticeable than the
  likeness. We might anticipate this, since the dominant fact
  in the development of the peculiar plant life of Australia is
  drought; in the case of New Zealand it is moisture. Again, New      49
  Zealand has no snakes, and lacks the peculiar animals which we
  have seen in Australia. In fact, its only native animals are a
  bat and a rat, the latter perhaps introduced by the Maoris. To
  compensate for this it has a large group of birds peculiar to
  itself, including the wingless birds, which may have lost their
  wings since they had no need for flight from enemies on the
  ground. The best known of these birds is the _kiwi_; here we see    50
  him in his natural haunts. Again, there is the _takahe_, which
  was at one time thought to be extinct; but one or two specimens
  have been found, and there may be others still existing. Here       51
  is one of these stuffed. Finally there is the gigantic _moa_,       52
  which probably existed at the time of Captain Cook’s voyage. Now
  we can only see its skeleton, but naturalists have attempted to
  re-construct the whole bird, as we see here. One link New Zealand   53
  possesses with a very remote geological past; this is the curious
  _tuatara_ or three-eyed lizard. He belongs to an extinct group      54
  of reptiles which lived in Europe many ages ago and is now only
  represented in the fossils which we dig up. So we see that in its
  animal life New Zealand differs from Australia and from the rest
  of the world; we shall find also a strong contrast between the
  native races of the two countries in their character and origin,
  their relations with the white settlers, and their influence on
  the history and development of the land which they possessed
  before our arrival.

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 23._

  GOVETT’S LEAP: BLUE MOUNTAINS.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 27._

  THE MURRAY, IN FLOOD.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 31._

  YASS.]




  LECTURE II

  NEW SOUTH WALES


  When, in 1770, Captain Cook dropped anchor in Botany Bay, he just
  missed discovering the finest harbour in the world. Voyaging
  northwards he sighted Port Jackson in the distance but did not
  examine it more closely, and the discovery was left to the first
  party of colonists, a few years later. The harbour which we are
  going to explore was the scene of the first real settlement, and
  is still the vital centre for the whole of New South Wales.

  We steam through a broad channel, nearly a mile wide between
  the rugged points which guard it. There is no lack of room here      1
  for ships to pass one another, and our large vessel seems quite
  insignificant beside the towering cliffs. On our right is a broad
  bay, the North Harbour, with the village of Manly at its head;
  on the other side of Manly, across a narrow isthmus, is the open
  ocean, with its long rollers thundering always in surf upon the
  beach. But inside the Heads the water is calm as a lake. In
  front of us, and beyond the North Harbour, is a narrow, winding
  inlet, running for miles into the hills; this is Middle Harbour.     2
  There is plenty of good anchorage here, but it is mainly given
  up to pleasure boats; we are a long way yet from the commercial
  harbour. To reach this our vessel turns sharply southwards,
  behind the South Head with its lighthouses, and steams on for        3
  about five miles up the Main Harbour. All along, on either hand,
  are jutting headlands, and in the bays between, especially on the
  south side, are seaside villages. But we shall not see swarms
  of bathers on the beaches as in our own country, for there are
  sharks in Sydney Harbour; the only safe bathing is in the surf
  outside. As we approach our landing-place the houses are more
  closely packed together, and islands are dotted here and there
  in the channel. We may be reminded to some degree of parts of
  the Clyde, or of one of the larger inlets on the west coast of
  Scotland; though here we find not only the most beautiful scenery
  but a great seaport and busy city in the very midst of it.

  We turn at last into Sydney Cove, on the south side of the
  harbour, and here we are moored at Circular Quay in the very         4
  heart of the city. Further on to the west, just round the next
  point, we see Darling Harbour, crowded with shipping, and its        5
  busy wharves piled with merchandise. The waterway extends some
  miles further inland, but here in Sydney Cove is the centre
  of commercial activity and the landing-place of the original
  settlers in 1788.

  [Illustration: PORT JACKSON.]

  Before we land let us look at a chart which shows us the long
  passage by which we have entered, the windings of the harbour        6
  and the city spreading over the surrounding hills. This will give
  us our bearings and help us to understand the views.

  We will now land, climb the hill, and look down on the Cove.  (4)
  There, on the further side, is our vessel, lying close to the
  tall warehouses. Beyond it are the trees of Government Domain,
  with the tower and roof of Government House showing above them.
  The little bay on our left is Farm Cove, where the warships lie      7
  at anchor; and beyond it again, on the next point, we see the
  trees of the Botanical Gardens. Then we have Woolloomooloo Bay,
  running up to a new and crowded suburb, and in the distance
  many more points and bays, as we look along the south side of
  the harbour back towards the sea. Or let us climb up behind our
  vessel, in another direction, to the library, and look down over
  Farm Cove. Below us, on the little island, is Fort Denison; and      8
  across the water on the north side is Mossman Bay, where a new
  Sydney is growing up. It is all very different from the crowded
  ugliness of most of our own commercial cities.

  To see something of the inside of the city we walk up George
  Street from the quayside. On our right is old Sydney, irregular
  and picturesque, built on the rocky peninsula between Sydney Cove
  and Darling Harbour. Here is a view of one of the old streets.       9
  George Street itself is very modern in appearance, with its broad   10
  roadway, electric cars, and handsome stone buildings. Here is the
  Post Office at one of the corners; it is built of sandstone and     11
  granite which are to be found in abundance in the local rocks.
  Across George Street runs Bridge Street, one of the oldest in the
  city. It takes its name from the old bridge across the little
  Tank stream, which has now been absorbed into the underground
  drainage of the city, like so many of our old streams in London.
  There are many Government buildings in this older part as we
  might expect, and at the top is the entrance to Government House.

  On the west side of Darling Harbour is the suburb of Pyrmont, on
  another peninsula; and at the base of these peninsulas Sydney is
  spreading and broadening out beyond the railway station. But even
  here, in the new suburb, are many parks and open spaces reserved
  for public use; while nothing can destroy the beauty of the older
  portion of the city, divided up by inlets, and with glimpses
  down many of its sloping streets of the blue water and the hills
  beyond. It is not surprising that the early settlers found this
  spot far more attractive than the open beach of Botany Bay.

  As we look down on the Cove and its neighbourhood, we must
  remember that we have in front of us only a small part of the
  great expanse of landlocked anchorage available in the harbour;
  there is still room for unlimited growth, though Sydney has
  already over a third of the total population of New South Wales
  collected in and around it.

  We must now look beyond the actual harbour, and try to place
  ourselves in the position of the early settlers. We have great
  distances to cover, since New South Wales is just half as large
  again as France; we must therefore keep fairly closely to the
  railway; but we shall not lose much by this as the railway will
  carry us through all the important districts of the State.

  We may travel north, south, or west, and the map can give us some
  idea of the character of the country through which we shall pass.   12
  Sydney lies near the middle of a long strip of coastland, shut in
  on its western side by the steep edge of a great plateau. In the
  neighbourhood of Sydney this edge goes by the name of the Blue
  Mountains. Here the barrier is about forty miles inland; further
  north, in the valleys of the Hunter and Hawkesbury rivers, the
  lowland widens out to nearly a hundred miles; while in some
  parts of the south the highlands come right down to the sea. This
  narrow strip was the original New South Wales.

  [Illustration: NEW SOUTH WALES AND VICTORIA: OROGRAPHICAL.

  _By permission of the Diagram Co._]

  We can travel now by railway along the coast strip to Newcastle,    13
  then up the valley of the Hunter, and finally climb the Liverpool
  Range on to the plateau beyond. But the journey was far from easy
  for the early settlers. In fact, until 1820, when a stock route
  was discovered from Sydney to Newcastle, the only intercourse
  with the north was by sea, and Newcastle grew up almost as a
  separate colony in consequence. The valleys of the Hunter and
  other rivers gave a natural direction to early settlement, since
  in their lower courses they flow through wide alluvial flats
  which are very fertile and easy to cultivate. But they are
  subject sometimes to devastating floods, as the settlers found to
  their cost, while the heavy summer rainfall is not well suited
  to certain of our crops, such as wheat. So in the early days the
  colony was often in difficulty as to its main food supply.

  The name Newcastle at once suggests coal; and coal is everywhere
  in this district. The surface of the country round Sydney is
  largely a barren sandstone; but underlying the whole of the area,
  from Newcastle on the north to Bulli on the south, and extending
  westward to the other side of the plateau edge, is a vast
  coalfield. Its chief development at present is around Newcastle.
  Here is a view of Hetton colliery, Newcastle; both the name and     14
  the picture remind us strongly of the North of England. We see
  the coal being wound up from the shaft as in our own mines, and
  in the distance vessels lying at the wharves in the fine harbour.
  Here again is a general view of the harbour in which we can         15
  clearly distinguish the loading of the coal and merchandise.

  A journey southward from Sydney to the other end of the coalfield
  will bring us to a less familiar type of mine. At Clifton the
  early explorers found coal strewn on the beach; the actual seam
  is in the face of the cliff, and shows as a broad black band,       16
  while the coal is mined by means of adits, and then run on to the
  little pier to be shipped. The coal is found under Sydney itself,
  and mining is now in progress on the south side of the harbour;
  but the shafts are much deeper here than at Newcastle, since the
  coal measures lie in the shape of a saucer, and Sydney is near
  the middle. We may notice here that the southern railway line
  ends at Nowra on the Shoalhaven river, and beyond are only a few
  small coast towns; so we need not at present explore further in
  this direction.

  We will now leave the coast district for a time and climb the
  plateau edge to survey the country beyond. First let us consider
  the nature of the obstacle by which the early settlers were
  faced. The Blue Mountains are merely a part of the eastern rim of
  a great tilted tableland of sandstone, with a steep face towards
  the sea and a long and more gentle slope towards the west. Down
  this face a series of comparatively short streams come tumbling
  to the sea; while on the other side of the ridge, almost within
  sight of the sea, are the sources of the slow westward-flowing
  rivers, whose courses are measured by thousands of miles.

  In this sandstone block the torrents have carved out deep gorges,
  which often widen out up-stream into broad valleys; but these
  valleys are deceptive and do not provide a road to the interior,    17
  since they end in steep cliffs over which the streams plunge
  in waterfalls. Here is a view of the country at Govett’s Leap;      18
  we may notice the flat tops of the ridges, all about the same
  level, which suggest the old surface of a plateau. It was a long
  time before the early settlers found a path over this edge, and
  the available roads are still very few all along its length, as
  we may see by tracing them on the map; our train must twist and
  tunnel up one of the ridges between two of the valleys by a most
  difficult route, with steep inclines, instead of following the
  bank of the stream below. We realise that climbing a plateau is
  a far more serious matter for the engineer than piercing through
  a narrow ridge of mountains.

  At Victoria, on our way up, we leave the train for a coach drive,
  to Jenolan. Here the scenery changes; the rock is no longer
  sandstone, but limestone, and the streams have burrowed out many
  curious gorges and underground channels as in our own Derbyshire.
  Here we have one of these in the form of a huge rock archway        19
  through which we catch a glimpse of the country beyond; while
  far down below us flows the stream which bored out the arch. A
  little further on we find the stream running at the bottom of a     20
  lofty cavern, and out into a deep and narrow gorge. Here again
  is a view of the interior of one of these caverns, with its huge
  pillars hanging from the roof and rising up from the floor.
  These limestone tunnels and gorges, and the sandstone valleys       21
  with their steep surrounding cliffs and narrow outlets, are a
  fine subject for the artist and tourist in search of beauty, but
  do not suggest opportunities for settlement or farming; at the
  same time they are evidently a serious obstacle to movement.
  The bare surface of the plateau is little better; in fact, the
  highlands in this district are still among the most thinly
  populated areas in New South Wales, in spite of their nearness
  to the capital and the oldest settlements. So we pass through
  quickly, and coming out by a long tunnel drop down to Lithgow,      22
  where we enter an entirely different kind of country. Lithgow
  is a manufacturing town, with coal mines, ironworks, smoke and
  dirt. It really belongs to the coast region, and is here, on the
  inside of the ridge, only because a small piece of the Newcastle
  coalfield, which underlies all the country which we have been
  crossing, crops out in this district from under the sandstone. On
  our journey inland we shall not meet with any other town of the
  same type, as we are now entering the great wheat-belt of Eastern
  Australia.

  Here is a typical farm on the eastern edge of the wheat-belt.       23
  Beyond the hills, which we see in the background, is the steep
  descent to the Hunter valley and the coastal plain. The hills
  are wooded, but the trees thin out and the ground becomes more
  open as we go westward down the long slope. We must not forget
  that here at the back of the plateau edge, though we are on the
  “Plains,” yet we are still more than a thousand feet above
  the level of the sea. We shall realise the importance of this
  height later. Our next picture shows a wide expanse of level        24
  ground, under grain, with the reapers at work. We are at Tamworth
  on the Liverpool Plains, not far from the northern end of the
  wheat-belt; but this belt can be traced from Queensland right
  round to South Australia, and from end to end the scenery is
  the same. There are the same open sunny plains, dotted with
  homesteads and small agricultural towns, and covered with the
  waving grain. Everywhere is the hum of machinery, reaping,
  binding, and threshing; for labour here is costly and as little
  as possible is done by hand. We may find it hard to tell, from
  the appearance of the country, where we are within a thousand
  miles, and we may be struck by the monotony of the view as we
  rush through it. None the less this great field of grain is
  impressive in its own fashion, if we use our imagination and
  follow the heavily loaded waggons to the station, and on to
  Sydney, and so across the ocean to London or Liverpool, until
  the grain appears as bread in the baker’s shop. We are watching
  here the beginning of the process by which the crowded millions
  of Industrial Europe are fed; and the wide spaces under crop may
  give us some idea of the greatness of the business; for we have
  in the wheat-belt of Australia, in spite of its great extent,
  only a small fraction of the wheatfields of the world.

  A rainfall map is the best aid to the understanding of the
  position and extent of the wheat area. The map is arranged in a     25
  series of parallel zones, which show the annual fall decreasing
  rapidly on the west side of the Divide, as we move further away
  from the coast. We are crossing one of these zones where the fall
  is from twenty to twenty-five inches, or not far removed from
  that of the eastern counties of England. This is the wheat-belt
  of Eastern Australia, which follows the rainfall right round the
  inner slope of the plateau as far as South Australia.

  This zone gradually shades off into another rather broader where
  the rainfall is much lower; from ten to twenty inches at most.
  So the scenery changes as we travel westward until we are lost
  in the country of the western plains: a great dry lowland not
  far above sea-level, and drained by slow-moving rivers, the
  Lachlan, Darling, Murray and their tributaries. The railway runs
  north-westward, through interminable miles of grass and scrub,
  until it ends at Bourke, the head of navigation on the Darling.
  It is the land of the sheep and nothing else. We may gain some
  idea of the enormous extent of land in this part of Australia,
  available for pasture or agriculture in some form, by placing
  upon it for comparison the eastern part of the United States, as
  in the map which we see here.                                       26

  New South Wales possesses nearly as many sheep as the rest of
  Australia together, and most of these are to be found on the
  inland slope of the plateau and far out into the plains, more
  especially in the Riverina district, between the Murray and the
  Murrumbidgee. We have left behind us the wheatfield and the
  reapers; the loaded waggons which we pass, drawn by long teams of   27
  horses, are carrying great bales of wool to the railway. We may
  follow the wool back to the shearing sheds where again all the      28
  work is done by machinery; then we go on to the sorting shed, and
  so to the railway and the showrooms at Sydney, where thousands
  of samples are displayed for the benefit of the buyers for the      29
  markets of Europe. We can see the great flocks of sheep before
  and after the shearing at the homestead or follow them as they      30
  are driven to pasture; and everywhere in this great river plain
  we find the same thing repeated. The rainfall is not sufficient
  for agriculture; but in ordinary years it will provide good grass
  for the sheep; and there is also the drought-resisting salt-bush
  to eke it out. Sometimes the rain fails, and then there is
  neither food on the ground nor water in the creeks and pools, and
  millions of sheep die, as in the great drought of 1901-2. The dry
  climate gives the best wool in the world, but it is not without
  its drawbacks; though the large profits made by the farmer in
  ordinary years more than compensate for an occasional period of
  drought.

  The uncertainty of the rainfall shows itself in another way,
  in the peculiarities of the rivers. Of all the great rivers in
  this basin, the Murray alone, fed by the melting snows of the
  Australian Alps, has a good supply of water at all seasons; the
  rest are variable. The Darling, Lachlan and Murrumbidgee are
  navigable for long distances in favourable seasons, and sometimes
  are flooded and overflow their banks, turning the surrounding
  country into a huge shallow lake; but at other times they become,
  in places, little more than strings of detached pools. Here is a    31
  lagoon on the Murrumbidgee, and here is the Murray evidently in     32
  flood, to judge from the trees growing out of the water; another
  view shows us the river in its ordinary state. By way of contrast   33
  here is a small creek in the Riverina district; the road crosses
  it by a ford, so that it is evidently not very deep, and would      34
  soon dry up. But after heavy rains, further up-country, the creek
  may become for a short time a roaring torrent. Settlers new to
  the country have often made the mistake of camping in the evening
  on the near side of a creek of this kind, only to find in the
  morning that the ford has vanished and that they must stay where
  they are until the water subsides. One of the most remarkable
  features in Australian weather is this sudden change from drought
  to flood, which not only transforms the rivers but in a few days
  gives a covering of rich green pasture where before was a parched
  desert supporting only the hardy salt-bush.

  When the rivers are full we can see the shallow draught steamers
  collecting wool and other products; but the want of water is        35
  not the only drawback. The rivers wind greatly in their courses
  over the level plain, so much so that at one place it is said
  that the steamer takes a whole day to pass a particular house,
  owing to the river bending right back upon itself. The river
  banks are marked by lines of gum trees, by which the eye can
  trace them for many miles across the level. Except for this, the
  whole area crossed by these rivers in their lower courses is one
  vast treeless plain, covered with grass and scrub in the rains,
  but at other times dry, dusty, and monotonous. It extends into
  Queensland and Victoria, but its greatest development is in New
  South Wales: for though the other colonies have large flocks of
  sheep, it is here that sheep-raising is the one industry above
  all others; in fact, under ordinary conditions, no others are
  profitable or even possible. In this country, next to the sheep,
  water is the most valuable commodity.

  The greater part of the Murray-Darling basin is filled up by
  recent rock sediment and river alluvium; but the narrow belt of
  country with a moderate rainfall, lying between the plateau edge
  and the western plains, has not depended for its development
  solely on agriculture. All along it the older rocks crop out,
  and in the older rocks we find the valuable minerals in which
  Australia abounds.

  Gold, in its alluvial form, occurs all along the agricultural
  belt; and since the time of the first discovery near Bathurst, in
  1851, the search for gold has often caused an inrush of people
  who have abandoned mining for the more secure and pleasant
  business of growing wheat or rearing sheep. Though much gold is
  still produced, New South Wales is not by any means the chief of
  the States to-day in this respect; but gold has been woven deeply
  into her history. One of the most usual methods of obtaining
  gold is still by dredging alluvium; but in place of the shovel
  and washing-pan we have the ugly machine dredger scooping out
  the creeks and flats where the gold is to be found. We must look
  elsewhere for gold-mining from the rock on a large scale; though
  this is increasing in New South Wales in connexion with the
  development of mining for other minerals, especially copper.

  Well out in the plains, and south of Bourke, at the end of a
  branch line of railway, is the town of Cobar; it stands just
  where the old rocks are disappearing underneath the recent
  deposits. Here is one of the chief centres of copper mining;
  and, once the work was started, mining for other ores naturally
  followed. It is a desolate country, rendered more so by the
  nature of the industry. The furnaces for the rough smelting of
  the ores need fuel, but coal is far away; so that the country
  round has been stripped of its small supply of timber, and has
  nothing left to relieve its ugly monotony. The ore, partly
  worked, is sent by rail all the way to Lithgow, on the coalfield,
  to undergo the further process of refining. The importance of
  these mining fields to the State lies not so much in the money
  value of the products as in the fact that they give rise to
  railways and traffic and so to a further spread of the settled
  agricultural population. The minerals, and especially gold, have
  played a great part in the settlement of the less accessible or
  less attractive regions of Australia.

  The old rocks, which disappear at Cobar, under the alluvium
  of the Murray basin, crop out again at the surface in the far
  west, and give us one of the chief silver-producing areas of the
  Continent. The natural outlet of the district is by Spencer Gulf,
  as Sydney is more than twice as far away; and the development
  of these mines has been largely due to the people and capital
  of South Australia. Here is one of the most famous mines at         36
  Broken Hill; and here we have the camel team, the only means of     37
  transport away from the railway. We are in the semi-desert area,
  and the existence of the mining population is only made possible
  by collecting the water from the neighbouring hills in great        38
  reservoirs, such as we see in the picture before us.

  We have still to see the south-east corner of the State, where
  we shall find some of the most picturesque scenery and a country
  rather different from that which we have so far visited. We
  take a line running south from Sydney, not along the coast, but
  following the river valleys and so up again on to the plateau
  at Goulburn. Here we branch off from the main line southwards
  through the Monaro Plains; this is a high pasture land, thinly
  populated, though there is a growing agricultural industry
  in some of the more favoured spots. To the east of the plain
  are the Coast Ranges, to the west the Snowy Mountains; both
  extending over the border into Victoria. Cooma, the terminus of
  the railway, about fifty miles from the State boundary, lies
  nearly three thousand feet above sea-level. North-west of Cooma
  is the town of Kiandra, in the Alps, where we find snow and
  winter sports as in Switzerland. South-west of Cooma is Mount
  Kosciusko, rising over seven thousand feet, the highest mountain
  in Australia; here the snow lies even in summer. We reach it by     39
  a road following the valley of the Snowy River, and can ride or     40
  even motor up the track almost to the summit. Here are two views    41
  of the river and its tributaries. Kosciusko is not an imposing
  peak as we see from these pictures, but merely a flattened ridge    42
  lying on the top of a great tableland, so perhaps we may be         43
  somewhat disappointed in the outcome of our visit.

  From Goulburn we begin the long descent to the level of the
  Murray. We are again crossing the agricultural belt, and forty
  miles west of Goulburn we break our journey at Yass. Here, on
  the banks of a small stream, the site has been fixed for the
  ideal city, the future capital of Federal Australia. Notice that
  we can have here no great industrial and commercial centre, but
  merely a town like Bathurst, a centre of farming and country
  life. Perhaps in this it will be more representative of the
  real Australia than are the larger cities. In position Yass is
  nearer Sydney than Melbourne; but it is roughly halfway between
  Brisbane and Adelaide; so that it is fairly central for the long
  belt which contains most of the population of Eastern Australia.
  The city is not to be allowed to grow haphazard; here we see        44
  the surveyors’ camp and the surveyors at work, mapping out the      45
  ground. In the distance is Black Mountain. The whole scene is
  quiet and rural, but it will be very different in a few years’      46
  time. This deliberate choosing of a site for a new city is common
  in Australian history; we may contrast with this the way in which
  centres of population have grown up in the course of ages in old
  countries almost of their own accord.

  We continue our journey down the slope, and crossing the
  Murrumbidgee at Wagga Wagga reach Albury, the border town. Here,
  it is necessary to change trains to continue the journey to
  Melbourne, for unfortunately the different States of Australia
  did not plan their railways on the same scale. In New South
  Wales the gauge of the lines is the same as that in England; in
  Victoria and in part of South Australia there is a broad gauge;
  while all the other railways in the continent are on a narrow
  gauge of three feet six inches. This has been adopted as the most
  economical for opening up a new country; but the differences have
  led to great inconvenience and loss, where through connexion is
  made between the main railway systems of the various States. We
  may remember how, in our own country, the Great Western Railway
  was forced to abandon the old and comfortable broad gauge, so as
  to be able to work in connexion with all the other lines which
  had adopted a narrower gauge; Australia has still to face the
  problem of unifying her railways in this respect.

  We have travelled for many miles over the railways, and now  (13)
  perhaps we may begin to notice certain peculiarities in their
  arrangement. First there is the main-line system connecting up
  the capitals. This runs north-east and south-west from Sydney,
  roughly parallel to the coast. Only a short stretch of this is
  on the low coastal plain; the rest is inside the plateau edge.
  The line descends through the Victorian Mountains to the sea
  at Melbourne; but goes inland again on its way to Adelaide.
  Branching from this system, or starting independently from the
  coast, is a whole series of lines running inland, roughly at
  right-angles to the coast. Some are very short, some very long;
  and they commonly end at a small town on one of the rivers. We
  can trace them right round from the line between Normanton and
  Croydon, in North-West Queensland, to that ending at Oodnadatta
  in the desert region of South Australia. Except round Bathurst,
  and in the country at the back of Melbourne, we shall not find
  many branches or cross connexions. This curious arrangement can
  only be understood in the light of the resources and historical
  development of the country; we have already seen something of its
  meaning in New South Wales.

  We noticed that the line from Sydney left the sea at Newcastle
  to follow the valley of the Hunter and scale the edge of the
  Liverpool Downs. For two hundred miles north of Newcastle the
  coast district lacks a railway; but in Clarence county, in the
  extreme north of the State, there is a detached piece of line
  running for a hundred miles not far from the coast, and touching
  it at one or two points. This line has a meaning.

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 40._

  ON THE DARLING DOWNS.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 41._

  GLADSTONE.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 43._

  TOWNSVILLE.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 46._

  ABOVE THE BARRON FALLS.]

  The district is warm, as it is low-lying, and not very far
  from the tropic; while the south-east winds bring abundant rains.
  It has been found to be well fitted for dairy cattle, and is
  displacing to some extent the coast district south of Sydney
  where the industry first started. Sydney still provides a good
  local market for the dairy products of this northern region, but
  there is also a growing trade with more distant places. We can
  understand now the need of a railway to open up the country and
  connect it with the sea.

  Here is a typical dairy farm with the cattle clustered in the       47
  shade on the banks of the creek. We notice the abundance of
  trees, and the curious dead bare look of some of them. These have
  been ringbarked, that is, a strip of bark has been cut away right
  round the trunk; this process kills the tree quickly, and the
  dead wood can then be burnt off. It is a rough and extravagant
  method of clearing, and some of the forest, which grows
  luxuriantly in this rainy district, is put to better use. In the
  wetter parts are to be found the cedar and other soft ornamental
  woods; in the drier, are the various hard woods of the eucalyptus
  family, especially the ironbark and the blackbutt. It was the
  timber which attracted the first settlers to this district,         48
  though the difficulty of transport has prevented them from making
  much use of it up to the present. Here we see the felled timber
  lying ready for removal; it must be dragged over rough tracks,      49
  often for long distances, by teams of horses and bullocks. We
  can gain some idea, from these pictures, of the huge size of the
  trees and the difficulty of forest development. Evidently the
  forest further inland can only be attacked by the aid of the
  railway. We shall find similar conditions in Queensland; in fact,
  we may look on this coast strip as giving us geographically the
  beginning of the Queensland coast conditions; for round Grafton,
  at the southern end of the railway, we find the cultivation of
  the sugar-cane.

  We have seen the beginning of the new capital of Federated
  Australia; we will now, before visiting Queensland, cross Torres
  Strait, with its innumerable islands and reefs, for a glimpse of
  Australia’s new tropical colony. British New Guinea, or Papua
  as it is now officially styled, was annexed in 1888, owing to
  pressure from the Australian colonies, and more particularly
  Queensland. From the first, Queensland, New South Wales and
  Victoria contributed to the cost of administration; and in 1906
  the new Commonwealth Government took over the entire control.

  British Papua is a curiously shaped corner, carved out of the       50
  eastern end of the great island of New Guinea. The western end of
  the island is entirely Dutch; the eastern we share with Germany.
  We may think of British Papua as two separate blocks, as the Gulf
  of Papua almost divides the territory into two. In the west is a
  rectangular area, with a low marshy coast, fringed with mangroves
  and split up by river deltas, especially that of the Fish River.
  The dividing line in this district between British and Dutch
  territory is merely a line of longitude. The country is mostly
  unexplored, except along the Fish and Strickland Rivers, and the
  natives are still fighters and cannibals. On the north of this
  block of country, and continuing south-east through a long narrow
  peninsula, is a high mountain backbone, on the other side of
  which is German territory. The eastern peninsula is mountainous
  everywhere; while the whole country is wet, densely forested
  and difficult to penetrate. The peninsula ends in a string of
  islands, mostly volcanic.

  The colony is in the first stage of organisation, when the main
  problem is to reduce the native to some kind of order. Let us see   51
  what he is like and how he lives. Here are two inhabitants of
  the coast district; they seem very different from the aborigines
  of Australia. Notice their frizzy hair, standing out in a great
  mop, and their bracelets and necklaces. The Papuans are fond of
  personal adornment. Here is a girl from the same district; she      52
  wears an elaborate girdle of grass. Behind her we see the end
  of a curious canoe, with an outrigger. The canoe is important
  to the Papuan, since he commonly plants his village at the
  water’s edge. Here is a village, and here is a nearer view of       53
  some of the houses; they are merely covered platforms, built        54
  on piles. Fighting and headhunting are still the amusements of
  the tribes which are not yet brought under our control, but
  conditions are changing rapidly for the better. Here is one of      55
  the instruments of the change, the native village constable,
  who seems quite proud of his office. Behind him, law and order      56
  are represented by the visiting magistrate with a small force
  of armed constabulary. The chief difficulty in opening up the
  country is that of movement. Everywhere we find forest, mountain,
  and unbridged streams. Here is the kind of track through which      57
  the explorer must force his way, and here we see two methods of     58
  crossing a stream. The native bridge hardly seems calculated for
  heavy traffic. We may realise from these pictures the nature of     59
  the task of controlling the natives of the interior, such as
  the formidable pair in front of us. Even when reduced to order      60
  the Papuan is not anxious to develop the country by work on
  plantation or mine.

  Port Moresby, the capital, stands on a fine bay in a relatively
  dry district. Here a few score white people represent the
  influence of civilisation. The climate forbids effective
  settlement. Here we see a European house with its staff of          61
  servants, and here is the steamer which links Papua with the        62
  mainland. It will be interesting to see how Australia solves the
  various problems of her new tropical Dependency. In Queensland we
  shall find similar problems, though in a modified shape.




  LECTURE III

  QUEENSLAND


  The land route from New South Wales to Queensland does not at
  present follow the sea-coast. The railway at Newcastle turns up
  the valley of the Hunter River, climbs the steep edge of the
  plateau, to run along the eastern rim of the Liverpool Plains
  and the Darling Downs, and then descends again by a steep pass
  to the sea-level at Brisbane. At the little frontier station of
  Wallangarra we must change trains, since the Queensland railways,    1
  as we have already noticed, are on a narrower gauge than those of
  New South Wales. This would be a very serious matter but for the
  alternative route by sea to Sydney; this is the natural route for
  heavy goods, since nearly all the important towns of Queensland
  are on or near the sea-coast. Before the advent of the railway,
  the sea was the sole means of intercourse for all the towns on
  the eastern rim of Australia; even in our own country, where the
  railway system is highly developed, the coasting trade is still
  of very great importance.

  [Illustration: QUEENSLAND: OROGRAPHICAL.

  _By permission of the Diagram Co._]

  The course of the railway suggests that the structure of the
  country is not unlike that which we have seen in New South Wales.    2
  This is true of the Darling Downs area, but further north the
  map shows us a somewhat different type of country. The eastern
  part of the State consists in the main of a broken and irregular
  highland mass; the west of rolling plains, sloping gently towards
  the interior or the Gulf of Carpentaria; but we look in vain
  for a long, well-marked escarpment, such as we find further
  south. The mountain ridges seem to run in every direction,
  sometimes, as near Cairns, forming a definite coast-range, at
  others striking inland or running down in spurs to the sea; so
  that the country is split up into a number of distinct basins,
  each with its own group of rivers flowing in the most diverse
  courses. Thus, from Cairns to Brisbane a great stretch of
  country, broadest in the middle, narrow at both ends, drains
  into the Pacific; but the Burdekin and the headwaters of the
  Fitzroy flow for long distances parallel to the coast, before
  turning and breaking through the ranges to the sea. Another
  group in the south joins the Murray-Darling system and belongs
  physically to New South Wales; the rivers of the north-west and
  of the Cape York peninsula drain for the most part into the Gulf
  of Carpentaria, while a large block of country in the west and
  south-west is occupied by intermittent streams, which in time of
  flood find their way into the inland basin of Lake Eyre, in South
  Australia. The country has not that simplicity of relief which we
  found over the greater part of New South Wales, and, as we might
  expect, the rainfall does not show such clear and symmetrical
  divisions. The fall from the south-east winds is more irregular      3
  and more widely distributed inland than in New South Wales; while
  in the north there is an area with tropical rains of a monsoon
  type.

  [Illustration: QUEENSLAND: RAINFALL.]

  On our railway journey we have crossed from one State to another,
  but we must notice that, except in the south-east corner, the
  boundaries of Queensland have no relation to the natural features
  of the country; they are merely mathematical lines. The reason
  for this is to be found in the method by which the settlement
  was carried out. Moreton Bay was one of Cook’s landing-places in
  1770; but the Brisbane River, flowing into it, was not discovered
  until 1823; the first settlement was formed in 1824, and the
  Province remained part of the mother State until 1859, when after
  much agitation it became an independent settlement. The interior
  was not explored at the time, so that the only way of determining
  a boundary was to follow a line of latitude or longitude. A
  similar method has been used in more recent times in parcelling
  out unexplored regions of Africa among the European Powers. The
  western boundary of the new State was the line of longitude 138°
  E., and what is now the Northern Territory remained nominally
  part of New South Wales, which thus consisted for a short time of
  two areas widely separated.

  The very name of the city of Brisbane recalls the connexion with
  the older colony, since Sir Thomas Brisbane was Governor of
  New South Wales in the years 1821-5, at the time of the first
  settlement. The city stands, not on the shores of Moreton Bay, as
  we might expect, but twenty miles up the river, on both banks,       4
  which are connected by the Victoria bridge. Here is a view over
  the bridge from the north bank; and here is a wide view of the     5,6
  river beyond the city. There is plenty of space in Brisbane,
  with its suburbs, for the population of 100,000; there are
  parks and gardens everywhere, and a large number of fine public
  buildings. Here are the library and the Executive Buildings in
  a beautiful garden, with a statue of Queen Victoria; here again      7
  the Parliament House, and here one of the main streets of the        8
  city. We have nothing like this in any town of the same size in      9
  England, but we must remember that Brisbane has been built for
  the future, and is the capital of a State more than three times
  the size of France.

  Brisbane lies in the extreme corner of Queensland, not, it may
  seem, a very good position for the capital; but the south has
  the more temperate climate, while behind Brisbane is some of
  the most fertile land in the State. Westward a railway runs for
  nearly five hundred miles, at right-angles to the coast-line, to
  Charleville on the Warrego; we are about to make a rapid survey
  of the country from it. Twenty-five miles out, we pass through
  Ipswich, at the head of the river navigation; it is a busy town
  with valuable coal mines and the main railway works of the State.
  Then we climb again the steep plateau edge, which we descended
  on our journey from Sydney, and come out at Toowoomba, on the
  Darling Downs, fifteen hundred to two thousand feet above the
  level of the sea.

  The Darling Downs country was reached in 1827, by Allan
  Cunningham, botanist and explorer, who travelled by way of the
  Hunter River and the Liverpool Plains; but the journey was
  difficult, and the first occupation was not until 1840, when
  Patrick Leslie brought over a few sheep and settled in the
  neighbourhood of Warwick. Others soon followed; the direct road
  to the coast was discovered, and the basin of the Condamine River
  became a great pastoral country where fortunes were made by the
  early squatters. There is less rain here than on the eastern
  side of the plateau edge, but it is sufficient for agriculture,
  and there is plenty of water in the streams. Much of the soil is
  volcanic in origin, and of great fertility, so that the land is
  wasted on sheep. Here we see the natural grass in this fertile      10
  region, and here is a great sheep run. The rancher’s home, which    11
  we have next, suggests comfort and success. At the present time,    12
  with the aid of the Government, the great pastoral properties are
  being broken up gradually, and sold or let to farmers; so that a
  district which started as a sheep run bids fair to become one of
  the most important agricultural areas in Australia. Toowoomba,      13
  the chief centre of this fertile district, has already the air
  of a busy and prosperous market town, as we may judge from the
  picture here.

  As we travel further west the country becomes drier and rather
  less fertile, so that agriculture gives way more and more to
  sheep. The conditions are not unlike those which we found to the
  west of Sydney; and we have seen that the Condamine and other
  rivers of this area all belong to the New South Wales river
  system. In fact we are crossing the northern end of the long
  agricultural belt which lies behind the coast ranges. Though we
  are close to the Tropic, the climate is not very different from
  that further south, owing to the height of the plateau above
  the sea. There are even slight frosts in the winter. Further
  north, we shall find a marked change; wheat disappears and sheep
  give way more and more to cattle. The cause of this lies in the
  different conditions of rainfall and temperature. To visit this
  country to the north we must return to Brisbane and resume our
  journey along the coast.

  Our first port of call is Gladstone, nearly three hundred miles
  north of Brisbane, on the landlocked inlet of Port Curtis, one of
  the finest natural harbours on the whole coast. Here is a view of   14
  the bay and the jetty. As we see, there is no very great trade      15
  at present, no line of wharves and warehouses; the importance
  of Gladstone is in the future; its chief business at present is
  the shipment of meat and cattle. A short railway journey takes
  us to Rockhampton, which lies some distance up a river, the         16
  Fitzroy; in this it resembles Brisbane. Near Rockhampton we find    17
  a steamer loading frozen meat from the factory. From Rockhampton
  the central railway runs nearly due west for over four hundred
  miles, to the Thompson River on the Bowen Downs. There is also
  a railway along the coast to Brisbane, linking up the various       18
  small seaports; but this line is a late construction. The typical
  railway of Queensland starts from the coast and runs directly
  inland; and the development of the country follows the same
  course.

  As we follow this inland line, in the wetter districts near the
  coast we find cattle everywhere. Further west, where the rainfall
  grows less, there are more sheep; but the area of considerable
  rainfall is much greater than in the districts further south,
  owing to the broadening out and irregularity of the eastern
  highland mass. The whole of this moist area is particularly
  suited to cattle.

  Before the settler can begin either cultivating the soil or
  raising cattle, there is much preliminary work to be done. A
  large part of Eastern Queensland is covered with forest or scrub,
  which must be cleared by cutting down and burning. Here we have
  a settler starting operations in a rough camp: he seems to have     19
  a difficult task before him. Here he has reached the stage of a
  permanent hut, with a small area of cultivated land round it, and   20
  beyond, roughly fenced pasture with the remnants of the forest
  showing in it. Here again are the cattle feeding in pasture         21
  where the trees have been ringbarked and so partly destroyed.
  To destroy, cut down, and burn trees which may yield valuable
  timber may seem an extravagant method, but the settler here has
  even less choice than in the Grafton district of New South Wales,
  where we saw the same methods employed. The timber is certainly
  valuable. Here are specimens of the hardwoods which we use for
  street pavements and railway sleepers, and for other purposes
  where great strength and endurance are needed; these are the
  blackbutt and Queensland Karri pine, and there are many other       22
  varieties. The difficulty is to get them to the markets where
  they are wanted. Here we see one method; a trainload of sleepers    23
  is leaving the sawmills, bound for India; but the railways are
  few and in many districts the logs must be dragged at a slow rate
  by bullock teams to the banks of the nearest creek, where they
  lie perhaps for months until there is enough water to float them
  down to the larger rivers and so to a seaport. This method is
  commonly used for the cedar which grows near the coast, and we
  have already seen it in New South Wales. Except in a few places
  easily accessible, the natural forest wealth of Queensland is as
  yet hardly touched.

  The railway which we have been following from Rockhampton runs
  almost along the Tropic. Townsville, our next landing-place,
  over eight hundred miles north-west of Brisbane, is well within
  the Tropic, yet in many ways it resembles Rockhampton and
  Gladstone. From this point another long line runs inland to
  end on a tributary of the Diamantina, about a hundred miles
  north-west of the terminus of the line from Rockhampton. We
  may notice that both these lines, after crossing the wide area
  of coastal drainage, reach the streams flowing into the Lake
  Eyre basin. They thus form real links with the interior. After
  Brisbane, Rockhampton and Townsville are the most important         24
  ports in the State. Townsville lies on a broad open bay, and
  the harbour has been made at great cost by building out long        25
  jetties. This has been done because here is the sole outlet for
  a very large area of country to the west. Here we find more meat    26
  and cattle; and again at Bowen, a small port on a fine natural
  harbour which we passed further south, they are landing cattle
  for the local stockbreeders. In short, the whole of this north
  and north-eastern district is the home of cattle; cattle running    27
  on the cleared scrub lands and pastures of the interior, or
  fattening on the rich alluvial lands round the creeks near the
  coast, where the surroundings, as we see from this picture, are     28
  very different.

  The coast region itself has something of far greater interest
  than cattle. There is here a higher uniform temperature than
  in the uplands, and in some parts a very heavy rainfall; the
  result is the growth of tropical and sub-tropical plants, and of
  these plants one of the most interesting to us is sugar. We find
  sugar-cultivation in patches, all along the coast from Brisbane
  northwards; and a little even in the extreme north of New South
  Wales, since the change in climate is very gradual in the coast
  region. But the most important districts for sugar lie near or
  inside the Tropic, where the cane is grown on the rich alluvial
  lands of the coast plains and river valleys.

  On our voyage to Townsville we passed Mackay, one of the chief
  centres of sugar-production; outside the Tropic is Bundaberg,
  where the cane is grown by the aid of irrigation; while in the
  far north is the important district of Cairns. The fertile land
  is covered with dense scrub and must be cleared; here is a          29
  clearing in progress; notice that the scrub is different from
  that which we saw up-country: it is palm. Within two years of
  planting the shoots the cane is ready for cutting, and in the
  northern districts we can go on for many years cutting the new
  canes as they spring up, without the need of re-planting. Here
  is the cane growing by irrigation in Bundaberg, one of the drier    30
  districts, and here is the reaping of the harvest. We notice        31
  that the cutters are white men. In the early days of sugar, the
  cultivation was on large estates, each manufacturing its sugar
  in its own mill. The heavy work was done by Kanakas, imported
  from the islands of the neighbouring Pacific. This is no longer
  allowed, and the cane is grown more and more on small farms, by
  white labour. The growers then sell it to a central mill, where
  the cane is crushed and the juice extracted. Some of the mills
  are owned by the small farmers on the co-operative principle, but
  more often the miller has nothing to do with the growing of the
  crop. Here we see a trainload of canes bound for the mill. There    32
  is now a Government bounty given for sugar produced entirely by
  white labour, and it seems to have been proved that, on the small
  farming system, it can be grown thus and show a good profit. But
  there are other and more attractive occupations for white people
  in Queensland, and though the whole coast, right round to the
  Gulf of Carpentaria, is suitable for sugar, it does not seem
  likely in the near future to become a large industry in a White
  Australia.

  Sugar is one of the most interesting and valuable of the tropical
  products of the coast region; but many others are grown, some for
  the market, others hardly beyond the experimental stage. Let us
  look at some of these. Here at Woombye are pineapples and bananas   33
  growing; and on the Johnstone River huge crates of bananas are      34
  being shipped for the markets in the towns further south. At
  Kuranda, on the Barron River, is a large coffee plantation where    35
  we may see the bushes growing and follow the berry as it is
  dried and husked. Here we notice the pruning of the coffee bush,    36
  and here is a fine specimen with the pruning completed. Not far     37
  away, in the State Nursery at Kamerunga, we find all kinds of
  tropical plants growing side by side. The nursery is an official
  experiment ground, since the Government is anxious to test the
  possibilities of the region for all kinds of economic plants. We
  walk down a fine avenue of palms and visit the quarter where they   38
  are experimenting with rubber trees. Here is a large plantation     39
  of the trees, and here we see the method of tapping. In a corner    40
  we come on a curious African rubber tree, in which the juice
  exudes, not from the bark, but from the fruit. More prosaic, but    41
  none the less useful, are the fibre plants, such as sisal hemp,
  of which we have a fine specimen here. Cotton-growing has also      42
  been attempted on a small scale, and the Commonwealth Government
  provides a bounty for its encouragement. The main difficulty is
  the high cost of labour for its cultivation. Here we see the
  picking of the cotton. We may gain some idea from these gardens     43
  of the great variety of tropical and sub-tropical plants, all of
  which will grow well on some part of this northern coast. The
  only need is labour to clear the scrub and make full use of the
  fertile alluvial soil and the warm rains.

  Clearing is very necessary in this region since the bush
  grows with great luxuriance. By travelling inland a few miles       44
  from Cairns we may find a picture of the bush in its natural
  state. The coastal plain south of Cairns is very narrow, for in
  the background, a short distance inland, are various mountain
  ranges such as the Bellenden Ker range, said to be the highest      45
  in Queensland. Only twenty miles from Cairns, in the foothills
  of one of these ranges, the little Barron River comes tumbling
  down in rapids and falls, amid some of the finest scenery in        46
  Australia. Here is the river a short distance above the falls;      47
  and here are the falls themselves from above and below. The         48
  railway, following the course of the river, brings us to the        49
  little township of Atherton. Here is the main street. We notice     50
  here a Chinese joss-house; this may serve to remind us that         51
  there are other immigrants besides the Kanakas in this northern
  region of whom account must be taken by the advocates of a White
  Australia. The Chinese have already spread all over the Malay
  region to the north, and might equally occupy tropical Australia
  if special measures were not adopted to check their immigration.

  In the country round Atherton we have all kinds of typical bush
  scenery. At one spot we pass giant fig-trees overhanging the
  road; next we enter the denser bush. We find lakes in the bush,     52
  of which the chief is Lake Eachem, which we have seen before.
  Everything suggests warmth and moisture. The rivers, lakes, and
  natural vegetation of this region, together with the fertile soil
  in the low-lying strip between the mountains and the sea, give us
  a picture of the conditions which prevail along the greater part
  of the Queensland coast. Here is a tropical garden, typical of      53
  the coast. Similar conditions extend right across the northern
  edge of the Australian continent.

  We have seen that the coast strip at Cairns is very narrow:
  behind the mountain edge we shall find the rivers flowing west
  into the Gulf of Carpentaria. As we travel westward we enter
  rather a different type of country. There is less rain than on
  the coast, but more than in the interior further south. We must
  remember that in this part of Queensland we are getting near the
  zone where a heavy monsoon rain sweeps in from the Pacific in
  summer. All this country is well fitted for cattle; but it is
  as yet thinly peopled, since there are few railways, so that it
  lacks an outlet to the sea. The existing railways are intended
  to serve the mining districts, since the gold of this region
  has been the chief attraction up to the present time. There are
  goldfields scattered all along the eastern side of the highlands.
  On the Cooktown line is Palmerville; on the Townsville line are
  Charters Towers and the Cape River field; near Rockhampton is
  Mount Morgan, one of the most famous mines in the past; it has      54
  given rise to a large town which we see here. Here, too, we see
  the crushing of the ore, preliminary to the chemical extraction     55
  of the gold. Near the coast, north of Brisbane, is the Gympie
  field, and in the far north, near the Gulf of Carpentaria, is
  Croydon. There are many smaller fields, and we can easily see
  the connexion between the railways and the gold. There are other    56
  minerals, too, in this area, so we see a whole township based on
  tin, and another growing up round a copper mine.                    57

  Some of the railways have done more than develop the mining
  areas; they have been pushed westward into the pastoral country
  on the long inland slopes of Queensland. We have already followed
  the southern lines for some distance, and we must now carry our
  exploration beyond the railway zone, for a very large area in
  the State is as yet quite untouched by railways. This area will
  be greatly reduced by the execution of the scheme contemplated
  by the State Government for linking up all the railways both
  along the coast and inland. First there is the country in the
  basin of the Flinders River, round the southern end of the Gulf
  of Carpentaria; this is being opened up slowly from the sea.
  It contains much good pasture land, and already feeds a large
  number of cattle. Further south is the drier country where the
  streams drain towards the Lake Eyre basin; this is part of the
  Rolling Plains which occupy West and South-West Queensland and
  the north-west corner of New South Wales. This area is most
  interesting owing to the possibility of obtaining water from
  beneath the ground.

  The rainfall is somewhat scanty, and in the dry weather the
  creeks lose themselves in the desert sands or become mere
  strings of waterholes. There may be enough food for the cattle
  or sheep, but they must have water also, and this can only be
  found underground. In the higher country to the east, where the
  rains are relatively heavy, are large areas where the water sinks
  readily into the ground, as the rock is porous. A long way below
  the surface it is held up by impervious strata of clay or rock
  and begins to creep away downhill towards the west and the Gulf
  of Carpentaria. To the west the surface also becomes impermeable,
  so that the water is confined between the two layers, and can be
  reached anywhere by boring through the top covering. Sometimes in
  these boreholes the water does not rise as far as the surface of    58
  the ground, and so must be pumped up; but more often it spouts
  out with great force, as we see it here. Some of these artesian
  wells give over a million gallons a day, and penetrate for three
  or four thousand feet into the earth. The water is often warm and
  charged with salts; but this does not seem to harm the cattle.
  The water from the bore is run off into trenches extending
  perhaps for miles, so that there is plenty of room for the cattle
  to drink. By the aid of these wells cattle can live in the
  country all the year round; and even the desert stock-route
  from South Australia to Queensland can be kept open in the dry
  season. The utilisation of a simple geological fact is changing
  the whole face of the country.

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 55._

  ON THE BANKS OF THE YARRA.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 56._

  WASHING GOLD DUST.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 60._

  KING’S BRIDGE: LAUNCESTON.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 65._

  SCAFFOLDING A TREE.]

  We have already seen that most of the chief towns of Queensland
  lie on or near the coast, and that there are many harbours, often
  protected by islands. The towns are there because the country was
  developed for the most part from the sea, and in fact settlement
  inland is still confined to the neighbourhood of the railways
  running up-country from these coast towns. The harbours are there
  because the land has sunk and the coast is partly drowned, giving
  deep sea-inlets, often where the sea has flooded some old river
  valley. As the coast gradually sank, the coral builders were at
  work, piling up their reefs in the warm shallows. So we get the
  Great Barrier Reef, stretching for fifteen hundred miles along      59
  the coast and leaving a calm though rather dangerous channel
  between itself and the mainland. The reef is really a series of
  reefs, resting on a platform of older rock, and pierced with
  numerous openings, especially where the larger rivers enter
  the sea; for the coral will not grow in fresh water. In the
  neighbourhood of this reef, especially in the north, towards
  Thursday Island, fishing for pearl oysters is largely carried on.
  The oysters are valuable for the mother of pearl, rather than for
  the pearls themselves, which are very small. Here, too, is found
  in great quantity the trepang, or sea slug as it is sometimes       60
  called, looking like millions of brown cucumbers crawling over
  the reef. Here is a portrait of one kind of the trepang; it does    61
  not seem very appetising, but the Chinese consider it a great
  delicacy. Nearly the whole of the trepang gathered in this region
  is exported to China, after being first cooked and dried. The
  rest is eaten by the natives, as it does not appeal to European
  tastes.

  In New South Wales we did not encounter the aboriginal
  Australian, since there he has practically disappeared. But he
  still survives in considerable numbers in parts of Queensland,
  where the country is less favourable for white occupation or has
  been settled for a shorter period. Government at the present
  day protects the aborigines as far as possible; but none the
  less they are steadily dying out and do not count in the future
  development of the country. We have already seen how, for the
  hard work of the plantations, the brown men from the islands
  of the Pacific were brought in, as there was no native labour
  available. The Kanaka has now been rejected, and Australia
  steadily refuses to admit the Chinese, who seem to be able to
  adapt themselves to any country and any climate. So the future of
  this northern part of the continent depends largely on the extent
  to which the natural resources of the country, as distinct from
  its minerals, can be exploited by purely white labour. Some parts
  of the coastlands are clearly not fitted for European occupation,
  and the policy of a White Australia is only rendered possible by
  the fact that the elevation of much of the country within the
  Tropic greatly modifies the climatic conditions. If Northern
  Australia had been a great lowland, its history must have been
  far different.




  LECTURE IV

  VICTORIA AND TASMANIA


  Following the example of the original settlers, we will approach
  Melbourne from the sea, as in this way we shall perhaps get the      1
  clearest view of the peculiarities of the State of Victoria. From
  Sydney to Cape Howe, we are still following the coastal plain of
  New South Wales, with the plateau edge in the background. But
  when we round Cape Howe and turn westward the coast changes:
  a series of mountain ridges runs down to the sea, ending in
  promontories with fiord-like inlets between them. The eastern end
  of Victoria is occupied by an irregular mountain mass, trending
  on the whole north and south. West of the mouth of the Snowy
  River, the coast scenery changes again, and we have Ninety Mile
  Beach. Here long banks of sand, brought by the strong currents
  from the west, have silted up the mouth of an old river valley.
  The water is thus held up and spreads out into lagoons, which        2
  communicate with the sea here and there through narrow channels.
  Further west still are isolated mountain ranges, one of which
  ends at Wilson Promontory, the southernmost point of the mainland
  of Australia. In the bight between this promontory and Cape
  Otway, lie Western Port and Port Phillip, wide bays with narrow
  entrances. Beyond Port Phillip the coast is fringed by the Otway
  ranges; and then follows a low plain, with few inlets or good
  harbours, a region of lakes and swamps. So we see three great
  irregular curves or bights, with great variety of coast-line;
  Port Phillip lies at the top of the middle curve. It is a            3
  drowned valley, like the lagoons further east, and is almost
  blocked at the mouth by the drifting sands. It is the only good
  natural harbour on this part of the coast, and is still the
  centre of settlement and of the area of densest population.

  [Illustration: PORT PHILLIP.]

  Though the harbour of Port Phillip was discovered at the
  beginning of the nineteenth century, it was over thirty years
  before a permanent settlement was planted on its shores.
  Something was learnt of the country in 1824, when Hume and
  Hovell, travelling overland from New South Wales along the route
  now partly followed by the railway, reached the spot where
  Geelong now stands. The coast at that time was unoccupied, except
  for a few whalers who were settled at Portland in the far west.
  The real occupation of Victoria was brought about by the fusion
  of two distinct streams of immigrants, one coming by land, the
  other by sea. In 1836 Sir Thomas Mitchell, one of the greatest of
  the New South Wales explorers, came over from the Murray basin
  and discovered the fertile plains at the back of Port Phillip;
  Australia Felix he named this country of promise. His report on
  the country led to a rapid movement from New South Wales over the
  border southward. But the journey from Sydney by land was long
  and arduous, and the southern part of Victoria, like the coast
  region of New South Wales, was most easily and naturally settled
  from the sea.

  In 1835 a Tasmanian, John Batman, representing a syndicate of
  Tasmanians, surveyed the site of Melbourne and tried to buy it
  from the natives; but the New South Wales Government refused to
  sanction the arrangement. Still other Tasmanians followed, and a
  body led by Fawkner actually settled on the Yarra in 1835. The
  two parties naturally quarrelled and the matter was complicated
  by the fact that New South Wales claimed the whole territory. The
  British Government supported this claim, and, as a result, in
  spite of the difficulty of communication, the people of Melbourne
  had to send their parliamentary representative to Sydney for
  some years. At length, in 1851, the Port Phillip district became
  independent and was re-named Victoria. The name of the State and
  its capital easily remind us of its history; for the official
  founding of Melbourne was in 1837, when Queen Victoria came to
  the throne and Lord Melbourne was Prime Minister.

  Melbourne and Port Phillip have not the picturesque appearance
  of Port Jackson and Sydney; the broad, lagoon-like harbour does
  not lend itself to scenic effects, and we have not the deep-water
  inlets penetrating the heart of the city which add so much to the
  beauty and utility of Sydney. Melbourne is built on the level,
  with broad, straight streets and fine buildings, modern and
  handsome, a typical Australian city. Here are Collins Street and   4,5
  Bourke Street. Here again are some of the Government offices; the    6
  statue in the foreground is one of General Gordon.

  Melbourne is a true city of the plains; we have already noticed
  that Port Phillip itself is merely part of a drowned plain. On
  either side of Melbourne, between the mountains on the north,
  which form a continuous wall from east to west of the State, and
  the broken ranges of the coast lies a great lowland, a series
  of plains dotted with marshes and detached hills. This is the
  Great Valley of Victoria. In the west it is largely covered with
  lavas, poured out from volcanoes now extinct. We can trace many
  of the old craters, especially in the district round Ballarat.       7
  Here is one of them from the inside; notice the shape of the
  rocks. It is the lava and the river alluvium which have made the
  Great Valley the most fertile area of the whole State. Eastward
  the plain narrows for a space and then broadens out again in the
  valley of the Latrobe, behind the lagoons and the Ninety Mile
  Beach. The early settlers were quick to notice the fine grasses
  on these open plains; they started with sheep, but with the
  growth of communications dairy farming and butter making have
  increased greatly. Here we have a typical view on the plains, not
  far from the great Lake Korangamite. It is open rolling country,     8
  and the building in the foreground is a large dairy. We may see
  the butter being brought in from a branch factory to the central
  collecting station, and can watch the latest methods of working
  it by machinery. We shall find the same scenery and the same
  industry all over this area.

  Here is another typical scene: a string of draught horses is         9
  being brought in for sale, and we can follow them back to their
  feeding ground on the rich grass of the open country. Victoria,     10
  with a much smaller area, values her horses at about four-fifths
  of the total value of those of New South Wales. They are not
  raised only for farm purposes as the picture before us proves. It
  is a race meeting, and we might imagine ourselves in England but    11
  for the strange shape of some of the carriages.

  We have had a glimpse of one aspect of Victoria; the port, the
  city, and the plain. Now let us turn to the mountains. We have
  seen that the east end of the State is almost filled up by a mass   12
  of highland, and we may notice that the railways only touch the
  outer fringe of this district. It is out of the world and thinly
  peopled, though much of it is well fitted for cattle. Westward
  the highland becomes narrower and sends out spurs on either side,
  leaving the Great Valley on the south, and on the north and
  north-west a broad plain sloping down to the Murray River. This
  corresponds somewhat to the slope west of the Divide in New South
  Wales, but the climate, as we shall see, is not the same.

  As we leave Melbourne and follow the Yarra up-stream we soon        13
  notice a change of scenery. At Warburton, the rail head, we are
  well within the highlands. The river runs through forests of
  eucalyptus and fern, and we notice rapids below the primitive       14
  bridge. It is evidently a mountain stream. This district is one
  of the playgrounds of Melbourne, and we stumble on the Christmas    15
  camp of the Boy Scouts, who are known in Australia as well as
  in our own part of the Empire. A few miles away to the north is     16
  Healesville. We notice here, as we drive through, that there are
  some trees which seem to have shed their leaves. Perhaps these      17
  are some English trees of which many have been imported, and they
  find the weather too dry and hot; for close by we find the native
  forest with trees in full leaf. In spite of the presence of
  English trees, we may easily recognise the country as Australia
  by the great gum trees, with their bare trunks, and the thorny
  acacia growing below. The gums and the tree ferns are everywhere    18
  on the hillsides. Even the house and garden, which we see here,
  have a slightly foreign look, and do not seem adapted for the       19
  conditions of an English winter. In fact, there is no winter,
  as we understand it, in this part of Victoria, though snow may
  lie for months on the heights of the Alps to the north-east. We
  must remember that Melbourne lies in nearly the same latitude
  as Seville. In the hills to the north of Melbourne we find the
  same scenery, with its abundance of streams and trees. Here is a
  woodland scene not far from Mount Macedon in this district, where   20
  the Governor of Victoria has his summer home.

       *       *       *       *       *

  Let us now travel westward by the railway to Ballarat, which
  lies on the south face of the narrow ridge which forms the
  water-parting between the Victorian Valley and the north-western
  plains. Ballarat is a fine town, second only to Melbourne, and
  planted in far more picturesque surroundings. Here is Sturt         21
  Street, named after one of Australia’s greatest explorers;          22
  looking down it we can just see Mount Warrenheit in the distance.
  We can wander in the Botanical Gardens where the aloe is in         23
  flower, or stroll by the lake and admire the black swans. But we
  have not come here only for the scenery. Ballarat represents the
  second great factor in the development of Victoria: gold.

  Within ten years of 1851, when gold was discovered here in paying
  quantities, all the chief fields of Victoria were opened up, and
  there was a sudden rush of settlers to the country. Many of the
  goldfields are so near Melbourne that it may be considered as
  a centre of mining as well as of pastoral industries. Thus we
  may account for the fact that it has to-day concentrated in its
  neighbourhood nearly half of the total population of the State.
  The gold most easily reached was in the underground leads, the
  channels of old streams, or fissures in the rock. In these were
  found nuggets and gold dust. Here we see the primitive methods of
  mining. A group of miners is sinking a simple shaft and raising     24
  the soil in buckets, while another washes it in a pan to separate
  the heavier gold dust. The pick and shovel and the strong arm       25
  of the miner are the chief instruments needed for this form of
  mining; and the fact that the goldfields are in the midst of
  fertile country, with farms all around them, makes the life much
  less hard than in some of the fields of the far interior of
  Australia which we shall visit later.

  The modern method of mining is to attack the quartz rock by the
  aid of machinery; and the shafts are often carried to a great
  depth. Here, instead of the tents of the miners, we see what
  might be the top of a coal mine, with elaborate machinery for       26
  winding. We shall examine this type of mine elsewhere; for though
  gold has made Victoria in the past, it is not now the chief
  gold-producing State in the Commonwealth. So we pass on, after a
  glance at a quartz reef cropping out from the ground--a sign that   27
  has often guided the prospector in his search.

  We have seen that as we travel eastward along the ridge on which
  we are standing, the forest grows more dense and settlement
  thinner, while roads and railways disappear. But the greatest
  change is found as we travel north and north-west from Ballarat.
  We have crossed to the inner slope of the highlands and are
  entering a very dry country. In the districts which we have
  visited the rainfall is not unlike that of the Midlands of          28
  England, though most comes in the winter time from the westerly
  winds. The extreme east of the State has also, like Sydney, a
  good deal of rain in summer from the Pacific. But the great
  plain sloping to the Murray is cut off by the highlands from the
  moist winds of the oceans and exposed to dry hot winds sweeping
  down from the deserts of the interior. The rivers end in shallow
  lakes and marshes on the arid plain; and we may notice that the
  railways push out into this district and stop in similar fashion.
  It is a region of sandhills, heaths, and a dense scrub, called
  _mallee_; dreary and desolate at first sight, but not altogether
  without promise. The soil is very fertile, being composed of the
  old river silts, and with light rains at the right season, or by
  the aid of irrigation, it will grow fine crops. Here we see the
  beginning of the process of cultivation, by the rolling down of     29
  the _mallee_ scrub.

  With large areas of fertile land lying waste for want of water,
  and water in abundance in the rivers, we should expect that
  attempts would be made to bring the two together. In New South
  Wales, near Yass on the Murrumbidgee, a great scheme is in
  progress. The Barren Jack dam, when finished next year, will hold
  up and make available for agriculture, a mass of water comparable
  to that of the Nile at Assuan. It will preserve, for the dry
  season, the water from the winter rains and the melting snows of
  spring. Other schemes are proposed for the Lachlan and Murray;
  up to the present, however, the chief development of irrigation
  has been in Victoria, on the streams flowing into the Murray and
  on the main river itself. Here we see the process of impounding     30
  the water; notice the woods in the background which show that we
  are on the upper course of the stream, near the hills and the
  region of heavier rainfall. Here again is a great reservoir being   31
  excavated, to hold the flood water; and next we may see the water
  flowing out into the irrigation channel. In another place the       32
  water is being pumped up into high-level tanks for distribution.    33
  The river has gradually built up a flood plain at a higher
  level than its usual channel; so that the water must be raised
  before it will flow over the fields. At Mildura and Renmark, the
  latter in South Australia, a large fruit-growing industry has
  been developed on the basis of irrigation. So we find lemons and
  apricots, and above all the currant and the vine which give us
  our dried currants and raisins.

  But the supply of water in the rivers is limited, for the rivers
  are not broad or deep, in spite of their great length. One of
  the chief difficulties of all irrigation schemes is to avoid
  damage to the interests of people living lower down the stream,
  or interference with the navigation. In this matter the interests
  of all three States of the Commonwealth must be considered,
  since the Murray basin is divided among them. As we have already
  noticed in the case of Queensland and New South Wales, the State
  boundaries only coincide in part with natural features of the
  country.

  The whole character of the river basin depends on the
  distribution of the rainfall. In the case of all three States
  there is a similar arrangement: first the coast belt, which is
  more varied and irregular in Queensland and Victoria than in New
  South Wales; then the highland edge, and then the back slope
  with a zone of moderate rainfall which shades off gradually into
  desert conditions. This zone narrows as we come southwards until
  it almost disappears in South Australia. But before following
  it out into this last State we will cross Bass Strait to visit
  Tasmania. Victoria, though a mere corner of the Australian
  continent, is about the size of Great Britain, while Tasmania is
  not very much smaller than Ireland, and both could support a very
  dense population. We must bear these facts in mind during our
  rapid journey through the country, since the maps in our atlases,
  for the most part, give us utterly wrong impressions as to the
  area of Australia.

  If we look at a chart showing the depths of the sea, we may         34
  notice that Bass Strait is shallow while the surrounding seas are
  deep. From Wilson Promontory we can trace a connexion through
  Flinders and Cape Barren Islands, to the north-east horn of the
  curved coast of Tasmania. A similar bridge runs through from the
  north-west horn, through the Hunter Islands and King Island. We
  may be reminded of the shallows of the English Channel and the
  North Sea, and can easily imagine that Tasmania, like England,
  at some very remote period formed part of the neighbouring
  continental mainland. We find, moreover, a general similarity
  between the plants and animals on the opposite sides of the
  Strait; but there are also some marked differences which suggest
  that Tasmania was separated very long ago and so has had a
  peculiar and isolated development.

  We cross Bass Strait and steam up the winding estuary of the
  Tamar to Launceston. The names remind us of England, and round us   35
  are the counties of Devon, Dorset, and Cornwall; but we must not
  be too ready to take the names as a guide to the character of the
  country or the climate. Our vessel lands us at a busy wharf in
  the middle of the town, for Launceston, though second to Hobart
  in size, is the chief commercial centre for the island. Here is a
  general view of the town: it is modern and well planned and has     36
  fine houses and gardens in the suburbs, like the other Australian
  capitals.

  A glance at the country round soon shows us why the early
  settlers were reminded of the south-west corner of England. At      37
  King’s Bridge we can leave the broad estuary of the Tamar and
  turn up the narrow valley of the Esk. Notice the fishermen: the
  streams here abound with fish, mostly introduced from England.
  The Esk here flows through a rocky and wooded gorge; and we might   38
  easily imagine ourselves in Devon or Cornwall. Higher up the
  scenery is spoilt by an ugly building with great pipes; it is the   39
  power station for the electric light of the town. The water power
  is too valuable to waste, so the picturesque has been sacrificed
  to the practical needs of the people.

  [Illustration: TASMANIA: OROGRAPHICAL.

  _By permission of the Diagram Co._]

  As we leave Launceston and travel up the valley of the Tamar,
  through beautiful open country, it is still easy to imagine that
  we are somewhere in the south of England. The apple orchards are    40
  everywhere. Here is one on a hill slope, but we notice that it
  is quite unlike the grass-grown orchards so common in Devon.
  The trees are grown as low bushes, in straight rows; it is less
  picturesque but more profitable. They produce the fine even fruit
  which we can buy in the London market. The climate is cooler
  and moister here than on the mainland and so is well fitted for
  most of our English fruits. There are the same orchards and the
  same English crops all along the line of the railway southward
  to Hobart. The line follows a narrow sheltered lowland. On the
  east is a broken mountainous country; on the west a great solid
  plateau, rising up in tiers or steps, and occupying all the         41
  centre of the island. We shall not cross this central block,
  since it is without road or rail and almost without inhabitants,
  a bleak bare roof to the island, feeding a few sheep in summer,
  but even then subject to biting storms and snow.

  From Launceston a short journey by rail will take us to             42
  Scottsdale among the hills in the north-eastern corner of the
  island. Here we meet the bullock team hauling timber, and droves    43
  of sheep on the road, while the eucalyptus forest is all around     44
  us; on this drier eastern side of Tasmania we seem to be back
  again in Australia. But if we travel westward from Launceston
  we shall notice a great change. At first our way lies over the
  plains, between the northern edge of the plateau and the sea.
  Then, at Burnie, we leave the sea and strike southwards towards a
  new country. We have turned the north-west corner of the plateau,
  and between its steep western edge and the sea we find the plain
  broken by a detached range of mountains rising from the level.
  Here is the chief mining district in the island.

  Let us use our eyes as the train runs swiftly through this
  country. The gaunt gum-trees have disappeared; everywhere are
  dense forests of the evergreen beech, called myrtle by the          45
  settlers, with its small feathery leaves. Mingled with the beech
  are clumps of pine, of various kinds; and below is a dense
  undergrowth of scrub which makes it difficult to penetrate the
  forest. The rivers have cut deep gorges in the surface of the
  plateau: here we see one of these with its slopes clad thickly      46
  with trees. It is a rugged country, largely unexplored, and would
  have few inhabitants but for the mines. It lies in the track of
  the strong west winds, the Roaring Forties, and has a rainfall
  three times as heavy as that of the sheltered eastern valleys,
  a rainfall only to be compared to that of the wettest parts of
  the West of Scotland and Ireland. The vegetation is naturally
  different from that of the neighbouring regions of Australia,
  with their moderate rainfall and greater warmth; in fact, to find
  a parallel to Western Tasmania we must look to New Zealand and to
  parts of South America.

         *       *       *       *       *

  The railway on which we are travelling has been built solely for
  the benefit of the mines, and we are drawing near to Zeehan, an
  important centre for the production of silver, lead, and other      47
  metals. Notice the mountains in the distance rising up sharply
  from the level of the plains. The town looks primitive and          48
  unfinished; little better than a mining camp. Here is one of the
  smelteries at the foot of the hills. A little further on we come    49
  down to the sea again at Strahan, the only seaport of importance
  on the west coast. It lies on a fine bay in the deep and almost     50
  landlocked inlet of Macquarie Harbour. This splendid sheet of
  water was discovered as early as 1816, but it was too far away
  from the settled portion of Tasmania, and it owes its present
  importance solely to the presence of the mines in the country
  behind it.

  A short distance inland is Queenstown, where much smelting is       51
  going on. Notice the desolate appearance of the country round,
  and the stumps of the trees which have been cut down for fuel.
  Gormanston, with its background of rugged mountain, is equally      52
  desolate. Close to this town are the famous Mount Lyell copper
  mines. Here is the “open cut” where they are quarrying into the     53
  mountain-side, and here are some of the smelting works. Here        54
  again is a general view from our hotel: the whole country is        55
  grim, scarred, and waste, in great contrast to the beautiful
  forest scenery a few miles away. But it is the source of great
  wealth to Tasmania.

  We shall not attempt to travel further south than Macquarie
  Harbour, as there is little beyond but wild forest and hill
  country, backed by the bare plateau and full in the path of the
  westerly gales from the Southern Ocean. It is without roads or
  railways and has scarcely a human settlement. So we return to
  Launceston and follow the railway southward to Hobart. The coast
  of the south-east corner is very different from that of the rest
  of the island. It is a drowned coast, with deep fiords, many
  islands, and irregular peninsulas barely connected by narrow
  necks with the mainland. On one of these deep fiords stands
  Hobart, the second oldest city in the whole of Australasia.

  Here we have a general view of Hobart, looking across the water     56
  to the hills beyond. Once again we are reminded of portions of
  the Clyde, and only Sydney can compare with Hobart for the beauty
  of its position. Here is another view from the water, with Mount    57
  Wellington in the background rising into the clouds. In the
  neighbouring lowlands, sheltered from the west by the mountains,
  are more apple orchards; and in a gully near the town we find a     58
  mass of tree ferns. Here again is Government House, since Hobart    59
  is the political capital of Tasmania: notice the lake and the
  trees. Everything around us suggests a mild and not very dry
  climate.

  If we climb Mount Wellington, the aspect of the country soon        60
  changes. The mountain is not an isolated peak, but merely the
  south-eastern corner of the central plateau. From the summit is
  a fine view of the fertile lowland valley and the great expanse
  of fiords and islands. But the summit itself is a wild confusion
  of boulders with low scrub and heath. This is a very good guide
  to the nature of the whole surface of the plateau behind, and
  we realise that it is not a favourable country for the settler,
  though in some of its wilder aspects it may attract the tourist.
  We shall not attempt to reach the lakes lying on the surface of
  the plateau, but content ourselves with a short journey round its
  southern rim.

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 68._

  ADELAIDE: LOOKING SOUTH-EAST.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 81._

  MUNDARING WEIR.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 82._

  ALLUVIAL MINING.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 83._

  CLIFFS IN THE GREAT BIGHT.]

  The coach will take us through more orchards, towards Franklin      61
  on the Huon River, where we touch the eastern side of the broken
  country from which we turned back at Macquarie Harbour. There
  are settlements all along the Huon Estuary, which runs into the
  channel of D’Entrecasteaux. Here we have come upon an important
  remnant of past history. The name is that of a French admiral who
  was sent out in 1791 to seek for a port in Southern Australia,
  so that France might gain a footing in these new islands.
  D’Entrecasteaux actually surveyed the Derwent River, and a later
  French expedition spent some time in the neighbourhood. Partly
  through fear of the designs of France we occupied Risdon in 1803,
  and in the following year, Colonel Collins, not content with the
  site at Port Phillip in Victoria, which he had occupied for a
  short time, came over and moved the settlement from Risdon to
  Hobart. The evidence of the activity of the French explorers in
  this region is still to be seen in the names of capes and bays
  all along the eastern coast of Tasmania.

  There are saw-mills at Hobart, and all around the Huon is a fine
  timber country, easily reached from the sea. Here we see the
  beginning of the end: the cutters have built a rough platform       62
  above the undergrowth and up to the point where the trunk of the
  tree rises straight and even. They are using the saw, though
  sometimes the whole work is done with the axe. They are fond of
  the axe in this part of the world, and it enters even into their
  sports, since the chopping match is a favourite form of athletic
  contest among them.

  The trees in this district grow to a great size; here we have       63
  a forest scene, with the huge logs scattered on the ground, or
  loaded on to trucks which will carry them to the mill. Geeveston
  is noted for its saw-mills, one of which we have before us. The     64
  logs disappear inside the mill, and we meet them again as sawn
  timber on the little wharf, ready to be shipped to all parts of     65
  the world.

  In the valley of the Huon, as well as in that of the Derwent, are
  orchards everywhere, proving that we are still in the sheltered
  lowland which we have traced from Launceston southwards. The
  cottages and gardens, with their masses of English flowers; the
  English trees, oaks and elms, and the hawthorn hedges all along
  the roadside, remind us strongly of England. Many even of the
  birds are English. In fact, this part of the island has been
  quite transformed by the colonists until it closely resembles
  the mother country. But we enter the forest and step at once
  from England to Australia. Here are the tall gums with their
  untidy bark and dead branches, and the swarms of honey-eating
  birds flitting among their blossoms. Here, too, are the wattle
  and banksia and many other plants peculiar to Australia, and the
  further we move from civilisation the less there is in the face
  of the country to remind us of England. But one difference may
  be noted between Tasmania and the rest of Australia: however
  far we penetrate into the wild interior we shall not meet the
  aborigines. They were few in number at the time of the first
  settlement, and the last survivor died many years ago.




  LECTURE V

  SOUTH AUSTRALIA AND WESTERN AUSTRALIA


  On our visits to other great capitals we have found steamers
  unloading their cargoes in the very heart of the city; but
  Adelaide, founded in 1836 and named after the wife of King
  William IV., is neither on the sea nor on a navigable river.
  The original settlers were aiming at a purely agricultural
  colony, and so chose a position a few miles inland in the midst
  of fertile land and pleasant scenery. So we must land at Port
  Adelaide and take the train.

  Partly owing to the separation of the port from the city, partly     1
  owing to the slower and more even growth of South Australia,
  Adelaide seems quieter and less crowded than Melbourne or
  Sydney, and its inhabitants consider it to be the model capital
  of Eastern Australia. King William Street, which we see here,        2
  with the statue of Colonel Light, the founder of the city, in
  the foreground, does not look in the least commercial. We get
  the same impression as we walk along the tree-clad banks of the      3
  little Torrens River, or cross it by the City Bridge. We miss
  the wharves and warehouses and steam cranes, and might almost        4
  imagine that we were on a backwater of the Upper Thames. The
  main streets, too, of the city remind us rather of the West End      5
  than of the City of London; while even the post-office stands
  in an open space with trees. In fact, the whole city, with its       6
  wide streets, its parks and gardens, gives the impression of         7
  spaciousness. If we make our way, however, to the railway station
  we shall see that Adelaide is not by any means without trade.
  Here are collected the products of all the country round; but as
  this is purely agricultural, and Adelaide is not the only outlet,
  there is not the rush of business which we saw at Melbourne.

  [Illustration: SOUTH AUSTRALIA: OROGRAPHICAL.

  _By permission of the Diagram Co._]

  Here is a general view which will give us some idea of the           8
  position of the city. It lies on a plain; a few miles away to the
  east the view is shut in by a long, low ridge. If we climb this
  ridge and look back towards the city, we have in sight a large
  part of the original South Australia.

  South Australia of to-day is a somewhat difficult country to         9
  analyse; but the ridge on which we are standing may give us the
  key to the whole. If we follow the heights northwards, we shall
  find that they disappear, hundreds of miles away, in the country
  south-east of Lake Eyre. South of Adelaide they curve round and
  end in Kangaroo Island, which stretches across the mouth of the
  Gulf of St. Vincent. These heights are really the edge of a
  plateau, and the plateau slopes gently away from the sea towards
  the basin of the Murray. The Murray, at the great bend, turns
  sharply southwards and reaches its outlet in Lake Alexandrina
  just beyond the southern end of the highlands.

  Between the plateau edge and the sea, Adelaide and the Gulf towns
  lie along a narrow strip of lowland. The Gulf of St. Vincent
  is merely part of a larger gulf which is interrupted by Yorke
  Peninsula, so that we have really one great inlet running up to
  Port Augusta at the head of Spencer Gulf. The west side of this
  gulf is formed by another plateau which slopes away from the sea
  towards the salt lakes and marshes of the interior. We thus have
  two plateaus and a lowland in between, partly flooded by the sea.
  A portion of the surface has dropped down between two lines of
  cracks or faults, and a rift valley has been formed. Lake Torrens
  occupies the northern end of this valley. It is the eastern
  side of the valley, together with a small part of the back of
  the plateau, which constitutes the real South Australia. We may
  notice that the local railways are almost confined to this area.

  There is, however, one important piece of the State outside
  this area. South of Lake Alexandrina we see a long curving
  coast, bounded by sandbanks enclosing a string of lagoons,
  the Coorong; behind it is the scrub country which we have met
  already in the north-west district of Victoria. Beyond this,
  in the south-east corner, especially around Mount Gambier, we
  find the same conditions as on the neighbouring coast regions
  of Victoria. There is considerable rainfall and there are even      10
  fresh-water lakes, as we see here. The soil, too, is fertile,
  since Mount Gambier belongs to the volcanic area of Victoria; so
  that there is agriculture and dairy farming, and oats are grown.
  But the district is cut off from Adelaide by land and has rather
  a detached existence, though the railways now being built or
  planned will alter this.

  We will now explore the country round Adelaide. In the Mount
  Lofty ranges, east of the city, there are streams and waterfalls;   11
  but the rivers of the plain are very small and do not suggest
  a very heavy rainfall. Everywhere are orchards and vineyards
  growing fruits which are not grown in the open air in England.
  Here is an orchard quite near the city, and here is an orange       12
  tree laden with ripening fruit. The rainfall is very light and
  comes mostly in the winter, while the summers are hotter than       13
  in most of the occupied regions of Australia. We have the sunny
  climate of the Mediterranean and a corresponding vegetation.
  Yet it is healthy for white people, in spite of the heat, owing
  to the dry clear air; while the highlands only a few miles away
  offer a refuge in the summer.

  On the eastward side of the plateau there are again no large
  rivers, and the rainfall is even less than at Adelaide; but there
  is enough to grow fine crops of wheat. We see much the same
  arrangement of zones as at the back of Sydney, but the wheat-belt
  is narrower and the rainfall rather less. Very soon we drop down
  into the rainless plains of the Murray basin, where the only
  cultivation is in the irrigated district round Renmark. Here we     14
  can see them drying the raisins and loading them on to the little
  steamer which will take them down to near the mouth of the river.   15
  They will then be sent on by rail to Adelaide, since the river
  has no good outlet to the sea.

  Yorke Peninsula and the western side of Spencer Gulf have a few
  small towns on the coast; inland they have no rivers but only
  dry pastures, salt lakes, and marshes. Here is one of these
  lakes in the Peninsula. The character of this district will         16
  change in the future, as much of it is adapted for the growing of
  wheat which has already been introduced. The only considerable
  population at present is on the coast strip from Adelaide to
  Port Augusta, and on the back of the plateau, never more than a
  hundred miles from the coast.

  As we follow the railway northwards from Adelaide we shall find     17
  that agriculture decreases with the decreasing rainfall; in place
  of crops we see cattle and sheep. Here is a typical station only    18
  a hundred miles north of Adelaide, where the sheep seem to be
  in full possession. The further north we go the thinner is the
  settlement; and north of Port Augusta we shall only find it at a
  few favoured spots near the railway.

  Beyond Lake Torrens the plateau edge to the east trends away
  and disappears, and we enter the Lake Eyre basin. At one time
  this may have been a vast inland sea, as the remains of extinct
  animals show that the climate must have been very different from
  the present. Now it is a great clay plain, broken by low plateaus
  and ridges of sandstone, and with much of its surface covered
  with stones or mulga scrub. The lakes are salt, while the long
  rivers, shown on the map as flowing into them, may be only a
  string of mudholes for years together. Much of this region is
  still unexplored, and nearly the whole of it is useless.

  The railway ends at Oodnadatta, to which a train runs at rare
  intervals; and off the railway the camel, which has been            19
  introduced into Australia for this purpose, is the only means of
  transport. To the east of this line something may be made of the
  country by boring through the clay to reach the artesian water,
  as we have seen already in Queensland and New South Wales; so
  that settlement may spread slowly towards these States. To the
  west is the arid plateau which covers so much of the central part
  of the continent--the Sahara of Australia.

  Adelaide is a little south of Sydney in latitude, and Oodnadatta    20
  a little south of Brisbane, yet what a difference between the two
  parallel journeys by rail! The explanation is to be found in the
  rainfall figures: north of Port Augusta we enter the zone where
  the annual amount is under ten inches. The railway reminds us
  of those starting from the east coast and ending at some remote
  point in the interior; but there seems very little country here
  for our line to exploit or develop. To understand fully its
  meaning we must look back at the past history of the region.

  South Australia was founded by an Association formed in England
  with the object of building up a model agricultural colony. The
  plan was to sell the unoccupied land and use the proceeds to aid
  suitable emigrants in settling there. With this idea Adelaide was
  founded in 1836. For a few years the colony was poor, as it was
  intended to be self-supporting and the capital in private hands
  was insufficient to develop the country. But progress was helped
  by the various discoveries of copper, from 1842 onwards, at
  Kapunda, Burra and other places; and by 1855 the colony was able
  to export large quantities of agricultural produce to the other
  colonies, which had depended mainly on Tasmania up to this time.

  It is curious that the State which is still mainly agricultural
  was the first to develop its minerals on a large scale; but
  as the mineral was copper and not gold, it led to no rush of
  settlers, but only to a steady growth of population. The older
  mines have been long worked out, but those in Yorke Peninsula and
  in the Flinders Range still produce large quantities. Here are      21
  views of the Wallaroo and Moonta mines in the Peninsula.            22

  With the exception of some iron ore, which is not much worked,
  South Australia has no other important minerals of its own: yet
  at Port Pirie, on the east side of Spencer Gulf, we find large
  smelting works. To explain this we must look back again at the
  railway map. From the port a line runs north-east for two hundred
  miles or more, to the Silverton country, just inside the New
  South Wales border which we have already visited. It is the
  natural outlet for this district, as Sydney is more than twice as
  far away.

  Here we see Port Pirie and some of the smelting works. The works    23
  also handle iron ore which is brought down to the opposite shore    24
  of the Gulf by a short railway from Iron Knob, near Lake Gilles,
  in the dry interior of the western plateau. In the case of this
  district we notice once again that the artificial boundary
  following a line of longitude has no correspondence with the
  natural features of the country.

  We have already seen how, on the constitution of Queensland as
  a separate State in 1859, the country to the west was left as       25
  a detached portion of New South Wales. In 1855, Gregory had
  crossed what is now the Northern Territory, from the Victoria
  River in the west to the Flinders River, and so through North
  Queensland to Brisbane, following the line taken earlier by
  the explorer Leichhardt, but further inland. At the same time,
  various explorers had been following up Eyre’s discoveries in
  South Australia, and miners and shepherds were pushing steadily
  northwards from Yorke Peninsula along the line of the present
  railway. In 1859, South Australia offered a prize for the first
  explorer to cross the continent from south to north, urged on
  by the proposal to connect Australia with England by a cable
  which must be landed somewhere on the north coast. A party from
  Victoria, under Burke, started first, and following roughly the
  western boundaries of New South Wales and Queensland, came out
  by way of the Flinders River to the Gulf of Carpentaria. But
  on their return Burke and Wills perished at Cooper’s Creek of
  starvation, and only one member of the party was rescued.

  In 1862, Stuart, for South Australia, succeeded in crossing to
  the north coast and returning to Adelaide by the route west of
  Lake Eyre which is now followed by the railway and telegraph.
  The immediate result was that the Northern Territory became
  politically part of South Australia, instead of being an annex
  to New South Wales; but it has recently been transferred to the
  Commonwealth Government by which it is now administered. By 1872,
  the telegraph line was completed to Palmerston, the northern
  capital, on Port Darwin, where the cable is landed. By 1889, the
  railway from the south had been pushed forward to Oodnadatta,
  nearly seven hundred miles from Adelaide; while in the north one
  hundred and fifty miles of line was built southwards. Some day,
  probably in the near future, the rail will stretch from shore to
  shore, but there still remains a gap of over a thousand miles.

  North of Lake Eyre, and on the Tropic, the Territory is crossed
  by the Macdonell Ranges, running east and west. Then comes a
  stretch of five hundred miles of sandy plains, with scrub and
  spinifex, and then the peninsula of Arnhem Land, a low plateau
  with a considerable rainfall. Right on the coast are mangrove
  swamps and tropical rainfall, as in North Queensland. Though
  some of this country is suited to cattle, and gold has also
  been discovered, progress has not been very rapid, in spite of
  the importance of the magnificent harbour of Port Darwin. The
  population consists of a few hundred Europeans, as many Asiatics,
  mainly Chinese, and some thousands of aborigines.

  After Stuart’s journey there remained only to complete the
  conquest of the desert from east to west. In 1840, Eyre had
  succeeded in travelling from Adelaide to West Australia along
  the shores of the Great Australian Bight. It was 1870 before Sir
  John Forrest traversed the same route in the opposite direction.
  The result was the occupation of Eucla, in the middle of the
  Bight, and the completion of the overland wire from Adelaide to
  Albany in 1877. Finally, in 1874, Forrest crossed the middle of
  the great plateau, from Geraldton to the north-south telegraph
  line. A few daring journeys and the two telegraph lines still
  represent the only land links between the detached areas of
  settlement which fringe the central plateau block; but a stronger
  link will soon be forged. Already the work is in hand. A survey
  of the route was completed in 1909 by the Federal Government;
  and at the end of 1911 a Bill was passed for the construction of
  a railway from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie, a distance of over
  1000 miles. This line will not only shorten the mail route to the
  eastern States, but may also lead to some pastoral settlement, as
  not all the country traversed is desert.

  South and Western Australia, with the Northern Territory,
  together include nearly two-thirds of the continent. Western
  Australia alone includes nearly a third. It is rather more than
  five times the size of Spain, but its population is smaller
  than that of any of the States of the mainland. The reason for
  this contrast is partly a matter of history, as the State is
  comparatively young, and partly due to geographical causes, as we
  shall see when we have examined the country.

  The map shows Western Australia stretching from north to south,     26
  across the whole breadth of the continent, with the Tropic
  running through the middle. It corresponds in position to
  Queensland and New South Wales; for Cape Londonderry is in the
  same latitude as the middle of Cape York Peninsula in Queensland,
  while Albany is a little south of Sydney. The greater part of
  the State is occupied by a broad plateau, from a thousand to
  fifteen hundred feet high; between this and the sea is a narrow
  coastal plain, irregular and deeply indented in the north,
  narrower and more uniform towards the south, and disappearing
  in the south-west corner where the plateau edge approaches the
  sea. We may notice a certain likeness here to the structure of
  the eastern end of the continent. We shall find nearly the whole
  of the agricultural population collected along a comparatively
  narrow belt of country from Geraldton to Albany, with Perth, the
  capital, in the middle. On the plateau there are no great rivers,
  but many short streams run down from its western edge to the sea;
  and though the map shows large lakes in the interior we shall
  find that in this case the map is not entirely to be trusted.

  The Swan River was discovered by Captain Stirling on his
  exploring mission from Sydney in 1827. Two years later Captain
  Fremantle took formal possession, and the Swan River Settlement
  was founded. The Home Government was at first doubtful about
  the project, but was urged on to the settlement through fear of
  French occupation. Perth itself lies twelve miles up the river;     27
  its port is Fremantle, at the mouth of the river, on a deep and
  safe harbour, crowded with wharves and shipping. It is the main     28
  outlet for the trade of all this part of Western Australia.

  Instead of taking the train we will travel by launch up the Swan
  River; on our way we notice the large flocks of black swans         29
  which are now collected here and preserved by the Government.
  The city of Perth is smaller and more irregular than Adelaide
  or Melbourne, and we see it at its best as we approach by the
  river. It lies rather in a hollow, and from the higher land in      30
  the King’s Park we get a fine view along the river front. The
  main streets differ little from those of other Australian cities;
  but in St. George’s Terrace they are working on the road, and       31
  we notice that the old tree stumps are not yet removed. Although
  Perth is making very rapid progress, everything is as yet
  somewhat quieter, more picturesque and on a smaller scale than
  in the great capitals of the eastern States. On the outskirts of
  the city, especially overlooking the river, are the gardens and
  houses of the wealthier residents. Here is one of these; notice     32
  the lemon trees laden with fruit, although it is winter. In the
  country round we shall feel quite at home. Here we have a picture
  with pasture and scattered trees and fat cattle; and we pass a      33
  poultry farm which might well be in a corner of Surrey.

  Let us follow the Swan, now become the Avon River, inland. First
  we come to Newcastle, where there are many orange orchards in
  the broad valley; then we pass the township of Northam, where we
  meet a native woman on the road, and finally we reach York. From    34
  one of the surrounding hills we look down on a broad expanse of
  plain, dotted with farmhouses, and with a background of hills in    35
  the distance. There is a flour mill which might be in our own
  Yorkshire, and a very English-looking church on the sloping bank    36
  above the river. All looks settled and civilised. On the other      37
  hand, the King’s Head hotel is entirely primitive, and carries      38
  us back to the days of the early settlers, as it is one of the
  oldest buildings in the State. As we cross the bridge we notice
  that the trees are standing in the water, for the river is in
  flood.

  We have here a country full of English place-names, and with
  scenery which often reminds us of England; but at the same time
  we find wheat and oranges growing side by side, and trees in
  fruit and flower in the winter. This suggests something very
  different from our own climate. We must remember that Perth is
  in latitude 32° S. and that this district therefore corresponds
  to Egypt or Morocco. It is a land where frosts are unknown in
  the lowlands and valleys near the sea, and where the summers are
  hot and dry, though tempered by the sea breezes. Most of the rain
  falls in the winter, which is therefore the growing time; we
  have already noticed the Avon in flood. Even in the winter there
  is plenty of sun, as the rain falls largely in heavy showers at
  night.

  [Illustration: WESTERN AUSTRALIA: RAINFALL.]

  If we travel eastward from York we shall soon find a change         39
  in the face of the country, as the rainfall decreases quickly
  towards the interior. But for the present we will keep within the
  zone of moderate rainfall, not far from the coast, and continue
  our journey southwards. Much of the land round Perth has been
  cleared for agriculture, though it was formerly covered with
  forest. Beginning north of Perth, and stretching southwards at
  a distance of twenty to thirty miles from the coast, is a long
  belt of timber-country, marking the zone of heaviest rainfall.
  This belt broadens out and fills the whole peninsula in the
  south-west corner, between Flinders Bay and Geographe Bay, and
  finally disappears a few miles to the north-east of Albany. The
  dense forest clothes the western face of the plateau, and thins
  out eastward to open scrub country with scattered gum trees of
  various kinds. It consists in the main of Jarrah, with some
  blocks of Karri in the south and south-west.

  Jarrah is a very hard red-coloured wood which is useful for
  jetties, railway sleepers and all other work where there is great
  exposure to damp and weather. We may often walk over it in the
  streets of our cities, as it makes an excellent pavement. Here
  we see the appearance of the original tree: it is tall, perhaps     40
  a hundred feet high, with a trunk a yard or more thick and a
  dark-grey furrowed bark.

  With the Jarrah is found the Karri, of much the same character
  but less durable. It is one of the finest and tallest trees of
  the Australian forest. Its bark is yellowish white, and peels
  off, leaving the tree clean, so that the Karri is sometimes
  called the white gum. The tree sometimes grows to a height of       41
  three hundred feet, and is far too large to handle; while even
  the smaller specimens need a whole team to haul a single log.
  So that, although there is a very large area of forest land, we
  can understand that cutting only goes on within easy reach of
  one of the short branch railway lines running down to the sea.
  The forests of Western Australia have recently been estimated to
  contain two hundred and twenty million tons of valuable timber,
  worth about three hundred million pounds sterling.

  Where the forest thins out eastward the red gum is one of the
  most useful trees, as it is spreading and branched, and so gives    42
  more shade than the other gum trees. This is important for the
  stockowner in a dry, hot country.

  We have already seen something of the agricultural district
  round York; and we shall find little difference as we follow the
  railway southwards to Albany, keeping always about a hundred
  miles from the coast. There are the same wheatfields and sheep
  and occasional orchards; it is not very different from the
  country round Perth, except that it is rather cooler as we
  travel southwards. In the summer, especially on the eastern edge
  of this belt, it is very dry and parched; but after the winter
  rains, though there is too little water for trees, the flowers
  and grasses spring up everywhere, especially everlasting flowers
  which grow in great profusion, as we see from the picture before    43
  us.

  So we have a coast belt associated with timber, and a parallel
  belt inland where agriculture is developing along the track of
  the railway. The southern terminus of the railway is Albany, on     44
  King George’s Sound, one of the best harbours of the Australian     45
  continent. Albany is a fortified coaling port, and is likely to
  grow in importance with the organisation of Australian defence
  in the future. This seems a small corner on the map, yet the
  area available for agriculture is considerably larger than the
  total area under cultivation in Great Britain; while beyond it,
  in the region of lessening rainfall, is a wide belt suited for
  sheep-raising. Further eastward still, beyond this belt, we
  enter another type of country. The railway from Northam Junction
  carries us across the dry country and through Southern Cross
  to the mining centre of Coolgardie. A little further on, at
  Kalgoorlie, it turns northward, to end at Laverton, about four
  hundred miles from Perth and the same distance from the sea to
  the south. This is the limit of that part of West Australian
  settlement which is based on gold.

  The gold-bearing country is in two bands, running north and
  south, through Southern Cross and Kalgoorlie; and we find quite
  a large population in the midst of waterless country. Here is
  a view of Kalgoorlie, a prosperous-looking town, in spite of        46
  its arid surroundings. This is the region of Australia where
  gold-mining has developed most rapidly in recent years. It is
  very different from Ballarat or the Queensland mines, where the
  gold lies in the midst of a fertile agricultural country, easily
  reached from the sea.

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 90._

  MILFORD SOUND.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 91._

  DUNEDIN.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 94._

  LOOKING UP TASMAN GLACIER.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 97._

  THE AVON: CHRISTCHURCH.]

  After leaving the agricultural belt we pass through a stony
  country with low hills covered with deadwood and scrub. Yet the
  map shows us many lakes and pools, and as it is winter we shall
  find them according to our expectations. Here is a pool of fresh    47
  water just after the rains; notice that it even has trees growing
  round it. Here again is one of the larger lakes; though there       48
  seems to be plenty of water here it is really only a flat clay
  marsh, flooded to the depth of a few inches. Notice the gold mine
  in the distance. In the hot weather the water in these shallow
  lakes soon evaporates, often leaving a deposit of salt, so that
  in place of a sheet of water there is a dreary clay flat covered
  with stones. On these flats near the shrunken lakes the only        49
  vegetation is the salt-bush, with occasional patches of very dry
  scrub.

  There is nothing to attract the settler to country such as this,
  except gold. There is little water, and that mostly salt or
  brackish, so that in the early days of the mines it was distilled
  and sold by the gallon at a high price. There was none available
  for washing the gold, so that it had to be separated from the
  earth and rock by the method known as dry-blowing. Now all this
  has been changed. The mines are supplied with water from far away
  in the Perth district, where the rainfall is heavy. The whole
  river is held up at Mundaring, twenty-one miles from Perth, by      50
  a gigantic weir, and the water is raised at one pumping station
  after another, and so carried up and over the plateau to the
  mining districts. The pipes are laid along the railway and the
  water is carried for about three hundred and fifty miles, or
  rather further than from London to Berwick. Without this great
  work, the Coolgardie region, with its large mining population,
  could not exist.

  Let us now examine the mining. Here we see its primitive methods
  in the bush. There is probably alluvial gold in the bed of a        51
  stream, buried under the surface sand and clay. The stuff is
  merely hauled up in buckets and thrown out on to the “dump” to      52
  await further treatment. Here again, instead of sinking a shaft,
  the miners have burrowed into the bare hillside. In some places,    53
  where water is to be had for a short time after the rains, the
  miners contrive a primitive washing machine such as we see here.    54
  The large trough is merely a hollow log, where the gold-bearing
  dirt is washed to free it from clay, while the larger stones are
  picked out. Then it is put into the long trough and sluiced, so
  that the gold settles among the small stones while the lighter
  stuff is carried away. The troughs are of wood and the pump is
  distinctly home made; the water is used again and again until it
  becomes too thick or evaporates altogether.

  Now let us turn to another picture. Here is an up-to-date mine,
  with machinery and tanks for the chemical extraction of the last    55
  atom of gold, after the mass has already been treated in great      56
  batteries. There is a deep shaft here with mechanical winding as
  in a coal mine; but often the gold-bearing quartz is near the
  surface, and we have an “open cut,” or practically a quarry.        57
  Here is one showing the rock at close quarters: the white is the
  rock which contains the gold, while the dark is the “mullock,”      58
  or “country” rock, as the miners style it. There are other
  goldfields nearer the coast, in the district north-east of Perth.
  Although near the sea this is a very dry country with much mulga
  scrub; for, as we go northwards, the scanty rainfall is more and
  more limited to a very narrow strip along the coast. We have
  noticed already that the forest zone ends not far north of Perth.

  The rest of the interior in this part of the State is a stony
  desert whose chief product is the spinifex, or porcupine grass,
  which we have seen before. This often forms an impenetrable
  scrub, as many explorers have found to their cost. Over very
  large areas the surface is covered with great boulders; these may
  be troublesome to the traveller, but they are not without their
  uses. The storm water runs off them and does not contain salt,
  so that it can be caught in a tank for the cattle on the stock      59
  routes, as we see in this picture.

  In the south-east, towards the great Australian Bight, there is
  a change. There is much limestone country here, with pasture,
  but the water sinks away through the porous rock. Access, too,
  is difficult, owing to the cliff barrier stretching for fifteen
  hundred miles unbroken by any stream or gap. Here is a view of      60
  these cliffs; sometimes they come down to the sea, sometimes they
  lie some distance inland, but they are always present. Here, too,
  we find the water, which sank into the plateau above, breaking      61
  out at the foot of the cliffs and giving us unexpected vegetation.

  One part of West Australia we have not visited, that beyond the
  Tropic to the north. Here is a moderate rainfall similar to that
  in the Northern Territory and in Queensland; while in the extreme
  north we meet the heavy downpour of the Tropics. Much of it is
  well suited for cattle, but at present it is hardly touched, and
  it is separated from the populous district of the south by a wide
  stretch of dry and inhospitable country.




  LECTURE VI

  NEW ZEALAND--SOUTH ISLAND


  We now return to the east and leave Hobart, with a westerly wind
  astern, and following the course of the great Dutch navigator
  Tasman, steam south-eastward across the deep sea which still
  bears his name. We are bound for the southern end of New Zealand.

  The islands of New Zealand are often compared to the British
  Islands, but we must be careful not to press this comparison too
  far. We must notice that their position on the globe corresponds
  not to that of Britain, but to that of Italy; while the long
  toe to the north is even nearer to the equator than the toe of
  Italy. In shape, too, the main islands remind us somewhat of
  Italy; for Cook Strait is shallow, and we may think of them as
  forming one continuous land mass. We may notice also that Stewart
  Island lies on a bank which extends from the mainland southwards
  as far as the Auckland Islands. There are similar shallows to
  the northward, with island points upon them projecting above the
  surface of the sea; so that we may think of the whole area as
  one great bank below the water, with the higher parts showing
  as land, while east and west of it lie the deep abysses of the
  Tasman Sea and the Pacific. So though we have at first sight
  a group of scattered islands, they have a certain unity if we
  look at the under-sea platform on which they stand. There are
  also certain scattered islands, more remote from the New Zealand
  group, but dependent politically on the Dominion. Of these the
  chief are the Chatham Islands, 500 miles east of Lyttelton, the
  Kermadecs, 600 miles north-east of Auckland, and beyond them the
  Cook Islands, far out in the Pacific.

  Though in shape and position New Zealand may resemble Italy, in
  one important respect it differs alike from Italy and the British
  Islands. It is surrounded by the open ocean, and there is no
  great continent near enough to affect its climate or the life
  of its people. Its plants and animals are largely peculiar to
  itself; its native races are widely different from the aborigines
  of Australia; its past development has been on independent lines,
  and we may remember that it still remains outside the circle of
  Australian Federation. We may contrast the position of Italy, in
  a land-locked sea and with a continental frontier; or the close
  connexion with the neighbouring mainland which has affected all
  the past history of our own islands.

  We are visiting South Island first, since its geography is more
  simple and easier to grasp than that of the North Island; we
  shall find, too, that some of the conditions are not unlike those
  which we have lately seen in Tasmania. Our steamer will land us      1
  at Bluff Harbour, in the extreme south of the island. Fifteen
  miles away, across Foveaux Strait, we can distinguish the hills
  of Stewart Island, famous for its oysters. Bluff is the port of
  Invercargill which lies some distance up the estuary of the New
  River, and is not visited by large vessels. It is a busy little
  town, and here we see the steamers loading wool, frozen meat, and
  perhaps oats. The tall chimney in the background belongs to one
  of the largest meat-freezing factories in the colony, while that
  smooth green mass is the Bluff itself. The wharves of a seaport
  are an excellent guide to the district which it serves; and wool,
  meat, and oats may suggest to us the nature of the country which
  we are about to visit.

  A journey of seventeen miles by rail brings us to Invercargill.
  We have seen the products of the country at the port; here
  we shall learn something more of the people who own them.
  Invercargill is a grey, solid-looking town, with very wide and
  clean streets and a general air of comfort and prosperity. The
  town is full of people who have come in for the great summer wool
  sales. Among the crowd we come across some highland pipers--a
  rather surprising meeting in the southern hemisphere. Our
  surprise will not last long. Let us look around us: here are Dee     2
  Street and Don Street, whose very names, like that of the town
  itself, carry us back to Scotland. Or let us look at the people
  and listen to their talk: we shall find Scots everywhere, not in
  this town only, but all over the south of the island. In fact,
  the original settlement at Otago, which we shall visit later, was
  a Scottish Free Kirk colony.

  From Invercargill we can reach the mountains of the south-west
  and some of the most magnificent scenery in the southern
  hemisphere; but before we start we must take a brief glance at
  the island as a whole. The country which is to be surveyed is        3
  about the same size as England and Wales. We remember that we
  approached it from the west but landed in the extreme south; the
  map may suggest a reason for this. Not far from the west coast,
  from end to end of the island, runs a backbone of mountains, with
  a steep face towards the Tasman Sea but a long and more gentle
  slope to the Pacific. Thus the rivers flowing to the west are
  short and rapid, for the most part mere mountain torrents, of no
  use for ships; while their narrow, deep-cut valleys give little
  space for settlement or roads into the interior. Their mouths
  also are blocked by sand-bars, owing to the strong winds and
  currents which sweep along the coast.

  In the south-west corner, instead of rivers, we find a whole
  group of fiords, deep inlets running up between mountain walls
  and leading nowhere. Here is some of the most beautiful but
  least known country in New Zealand; there are no railways and
  practically no settlement, as we shall find on our visit. In
  short, the island looks to the Pacific and turns its back on the
  Tasman Sea. On the east side there is more room. The province of
  Otago is hilly, but further north is the great expanse of the
  Canterbury Plains. North of the plains are more mountains, the
  Kaikoura Ranges, lying parallel to the east coast; so that even
  on this side of the island there is no through communication from
  end to end. We shall see later that this peculiar grouping of the
  physical features has had a great deal of influence on the nature
  and history of settlement in South Island, or Middle Island as
  some prefer to call it.

  [Illustration: SOUTH ISLAND: OROGRAPHICAL.]

  We will now start on our trip to the mountains, lakes, and fiords
  of the south-west. The first part of our journey is by train,
  past fields of oats and rough grazing land with sheep scattered
  about, and here and there a clump of firs. Soon we are running
  through a valley between the hills, and following the line of a
  grey-looking stream, to the town of Lumsden. We are coming to the    4
  end of the railway and must change into a motor car to complete
  our journey. Our destination is the beautiful Lake Manapouri,
  one of a group of lakes which wind in and out among the valleys
  of the western mountains just as the fiords which run in from
  the sea. Here is a piece of our road, with the mountains in the      5
  distance; notice the team of horses carting wool.

  We sleep at an accommodation house, and in the early morning go      6
  down to the little pier and board the launch which is to take
  us up the lake. Here we see it lying below one of the tree-clad      7
  slopes. In the distance, veiled in cloud, are the Hunter
  Mountains; here is a nearer view from which we can form some idea    8
  of the wonderful colours in which these mountain lakes abound.
  Further up the lake on the north side we see the Cathedral Peaks,    9
  with patches of snow still lying, although it is past midsummer;
  while all the lower slopes, right down to the water’s edge, are
  covered with green beech, called birch by the natives, with here
  and there the scarlet blossoms of the _rata_ tree making a patch
  of bright colour. Finally we see the end of the northern arm,       10
  with Spire Peak shooting up in the background.

  From Manapouri we drive across to another lake, Te Anau, where we
  again find a launch. From the northern end of this long, narrow
  and somewhat uninteresting lake we must walk the thirty miles
  over the Milford track, if we wish to see Milford Sound, one of
  the grandest of all the sea fiords. We are now beginning to
  realise how very much out of the world we are in this corner of
  the island.

  Our path lies for many miles through a dense forest of beech.
  From the roots, and far up the trunks, the trees are covered
  with mosses, lichens, and small ferns. On the ground are more
  thick mosses and myriads of ferns great and small. Everything is
  moist and green in this part of the island, where the perpetual
  westerly winds bring heavy rain all the year round to the
  mountain slopes. In fact, we shall be lucky if we finish our walk
  without meeting with a downpour. Here we see part of our track on   11
  the way up to the Mackinnon Pass, with the dense bush below and     12
  the snow-capped mountains above. All the way through the trees
  we have glimpses of cataracts, seaming the rugged slopes above
  the limit of the forest. Many of the torrent beds are dry now,
  like the one in front of us, but we can easily imagine the force    13
  of the flood water from the appearance of the stones and debris
  strewn about it.

  It is a long walk, and we stop for the night, wet and tired, at
  the Government huts at Pompolona, where we sleep, if we can, in
  rough wooden bunks fixed round the inside of the walls. In the
  early morning we start again, making our way by the side of the
  Clinton River which flows down the pass between dark woods not
  yet touched by the sunshine. So we go on over the Divide and        14
  down the valley of the Arthur River, through more dense jungle
  of tree ferns, to Sandfly Point, on Milford Sound, where Donald
  Sutherland is to meet us with his launch. It is growing late, and
  there are sandflies in plenty, but no sign of the launch or its
  independent owner. Sutherland was the original discoverer of the
  Sound and of the famous falls named after him, and for a long
  time he lived here in sole possession. He is now a kind of guide
  and guardian of its magnificent scenery, and has the air of a
  landowner showing visitors over his private estate. Here is his
  portrait, that of a typical blue-eyed Scot. He arrives at last      15
  and takes us by moonlight to the little landing near his house.

  In the morning we make a voyage down the Sound. All around us
  are steep mountain slopes with wisps of cloud hanging upon them
  not yet dissipated by the sun. At the head of the Sound we can      16
  see the Bowen Falls, and our boat will take us right up to their
  foot for a closer view. We pass Mitre Peak, with its remarkable     17
  shape, and then are shown Two Man Beach, where Sutherland landed    18
  first with one companion, prospecting for gold, thirty years
  ago. The rock above is dark purple-grey, with splashes of green
  and scarlet from the small trees clinging to it and the blossom
  of the _rata_. Finally we reach the Heads and the open sea, and     19
  turning look back. Notice how the mountain walls close in on
  the blue-black water. Sheer above the surface they tower for
  half to three-quarters of a mile, carved and polished by the
  great glacier which filled the Sound long ages ago. We may see
  something like this in the West of Scotland, though on a far
  smaller scale; but to find a close parallel we shall have to
  search among the fiords of Norway. Here is a map showing the        20
  district of the Sounds. When we have seen Milford, we have seen
  the essence of all the thirteen Sounds; though each has its own
  special beauty; so we start on our long tramp back, turning aside
  a mile or two from the Quinton Huts to visit the Sutherland         21
  Falls, which claim to be the highest in the world; and so to our
  motor car for Lumsden and the railway to Dunedin.

  Before reaching Dunedin we cross the Clutha, one of the largest
  of the New Zealand rivers, as it drains three lakes among the
  mountains, and these in their turn are fed from the snows of the
  southern Alps. The river flows for the most part through a narrow
  rock-bound channel, in hilly country, and so has no broad valley
  for settlement; but its sands are rich in alluvial gold, and
  we may perhaps catch sight of an ugly floating dredger, moored      22
  in the stream. Much of the gold in New Zealand is alluvial,
  and dredging for it in the river-bed is one of the most common
  and profitable methods of mining. This part of Otago owes its
  population and prosperity almost entirely to its gold and the
  sheep which are scattered everywhere over its rolling downs; in
  the west, as we have already seen, it is occupied by mountain,
  fiord, and forest, and is scarcely inhabited.

  Dunedin, the Edinburgh of New Zealand, is the most important
  commercial city in the South Island. It is much larger than
  Invercargill and has many fine buildings of the Oamaru stone,
  the best building stone to be found in the island. Here was the
  original Scottish settlement in 1848, and the natural outlet of
  the rich gold and pastoral district behind. The city lies at the
  head of a long inlet, Otago Harbour, which is formed by a narrow    23
  peninsula connected only by a small neck with the mainland.
  The peninsula and the surrounding hills together make a kind
  of funnel through which sweep the winds from the north-east or
  south-west. It is always cool and breezy here, a fit place for a
  strong, healthy, and energetic race; but people coming from the
  warmer regions of the North Island do not always appreciate the
  change. Here we have a wide view of the town and harbour, looking   24
  northwards, from the Town Belt, a fine stretch of public land
  on the hillside encircling the city. Here is a nearer view from     25
  which we can gain some notion of the size and character of the
  city itself. Notice the church spires, the tall factory chimneys,
  the warehouses and offices. Dunedin has its flour mills, its
  woollen mills, its manufactures of boots and clothing. Here is
  the interior of one of the large woollen mills, showing the         26
  combing and spinning machines; we might easily imagine ourselves
  in Yorkshire. Another picture gives us a glimpse of one of the      27
  many beauty spots on the coast within a short distance of the
  city.

  Just as the ocean trade of Invercargill was carried on at Bluff,
  so the outlet for Dunedin and the usual landing-place for large
  steamers is at Port Chalmers, some miles further down the inlet;    28
  though a recently dredged channel now enables them to reach the
  wharves of Dunedin itself. Here we see the port from the west,
  looking towards the sea. Dunedin is the headquarters of the
  largest steamship company in the southern hemisphere; the company
  trades especially with the coast ports of New Zealand and with
  Australia. It is a curious accident which has given us a fine
  harbour in this position. The east coast, like the west, takes
  the form of long, smooth bights, with very few natural harbours.
  The peninsula which forms Otago Inlet is volcanic in origin, as
  is the larger Banks Peninsula further north. There are no live
  volcanoes in South Island; but these interesting relics of past
  activity have proved of the greatest value to settlement. They
  even attracted here the Maoris, who confined themselves for the
  most part to North Island.

  We must now resume our journey, by the trunk line of railway,       29
  which follows the coast all the way, with occasional branches
  running inland between the south-eastern spurs of the central
  mountain chain. We pass Oamaru, whence comes the stone for many
  of the public buildings of New Zealand, and stop at Timaru,
  where we change trains. We are going up one of the branch lines
  to visit another district of magnificent scenery, though quite
  different from the southern lakes and fiords. This is the
  district of the New Zealand Alps, the Switzerland of the southern
  hemisphere. At Fairlie the railway ends and we must once again
  trust to a motor car. In the distance, as we start in the early
  morning, we see a great mass of snow-capped mountains: this is
  our goal.

  Our road at first lies across a flat plain, with sheep and
  cattle, and here and there a field of corn or a clump of trees
  and an isolated homestead. Then we reach Burke’s Pass, with its     30
  firs and poplars and little group of houses. Mount Cook, the
  highest peak in the island, is just visible in the distance. We
  are crossing over one of the long spurs which spread eastward
  from the main chain. Soon we find the mountains, with snow peaks,
  closing in on either side, as well as in front, and so we come      31
  down to Lake Tekapo.

  Here we cross the end of the lake by a suspension bridge; notice
  how the light is reflected from the snow on the summit of the
  mighty range in front of us. Next we come on a sight peculiar to
  the country; this is a boundary dog, a lonely sentry chained up     32
  at a point where the boundary of a sheep run crosses the road and
  there is no gate to prevent the sheep from straying. Around him
  is a heap of bones, the remnants of many meals. Then we reach
  another lake, Pukaki, with its chalky-looking water; and in the     33
  distance up the lake we have a view of the great mass of Mount
  Cook. We drive along the lake side right into the heart of the
  mountains, and in the evening reach the Hermitage at the foot of
  Mount Sefton. Here is a view of Mount Sefton and here are the       34
  Hermitage and the mountain as we should see them in winter.         35

  We sleep at the Hermitage, and in the morning start with a guide
  and the usual equipment of the climber in Switzerland. We cross
  the Hooker River by a suspended cage; the water looks quiet         36
  enough now, but here it is in flood; a very different picture.      37
  All along the west coast there are mountain streams of this kind;
  and we can easily imagine what a serious barrier they offer to
  movement from north to south across the line of their channels.

  It would be impossible, without a large scale map and plenty of
  space, to describe the wonders which we can see on a two days’
  walk, sleeping at Ball Hut, a long way up the mountain slopes.
  But we may gain some notion of the different kinds of scenery
  to be found. All around us are snow-clad peaks, with great
  glaciers flowing down the valleys between and ending in long
  moraines--masses of rock and debris with chalk-white streams
  flowing out from beneath them as in the picture before us. This
  is the Mueller Glacier with Mount Sefton; and the river coming      38
  out from the terminal face is the Hooker, which we crossed
  earlier at a lower point in its course. Here again we are looking   39
  up the famous Tasman Glacier, towards the Minarets, and here
  is the wonderful scene at the head of the glacier. On the same      40
  glacier we find a beautiful specimen of the ice river; and not      41
  far away, on the great Hochstetter, we see some magnificent         42
  ice falls. In the background is Mount Silberhorn. The picture
  suggests the origin of the name. Finally we have a view of Mount    43
  Cook, the Aorangi of the Maoris, with its topmost peaks rising
  into the clouds. It is the highest mountain in Australasia, and
  we have already seen it in various aspects from a distance. Here
  is the summit, twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea,     44
  or nearly three times the height of Ben Nevis. Mount Cook is
  worthy to stand by the side of the giant peaks of the Alps, and
  even in Switzerland it would be difficult to find scenery grander
  than that of these southern mountains.

  We must not spend too much time here, so we make our way back
  to Timaru. Timaru is a small but busy town and port, with
  flour mills, meat-freezing works, and steamers loading at its
  wharves. We must pause here for a moment as we are entering on
  a new region in South Island, very different from those which
  we have visited. Timaru is the chief outlet for the centre and
  south of the province of Canterbury. The eastern part of the
  province consists of a strip of level or gently undulating
  country, a hundred and fifty miles from north to south and from
  thirty to forty from east to west. This plain slopes gently from
  the foothills of the western mountains, and has been built up
  largely of alluvium brought down by the rivers which now flow
  across it in shifting channels through wide belts of shingle. It
  is a sharp contrast to the forest regions of the west: a land
  of comparatively small rainfall, with pastures, hedgerows, and
  open cornlands; treeless except for scattered clumps, planted by
  the settlers. Dropped suddenly in this district we might easily
  imagine that we were somewhere in the Midlands of England.

  On these treeless plains and the eastern slopes of the hills,       45
  the early settlers found pasture ready-made for their flocks;
  as there was no clearing of forest to be done. So, to-day, this
  part of South Island has still the most important sheep-rearing
  industry in New Zealand.

  Here is a typical farm near the foothills, with cattle feeding      46
  on the rich pasture. Again, we have a scene nearer Canterbury,
  showing a great expanse of grain, with the reapers at work. The     47
  rainfall is so small that in some parts of the plain there is
  not enough water for the farmer, so that artificial irrigation
  is necessary, and there are now many miles of water races           48
  strung across the country. It seems strange to talk of drought
  and irrigation after our experiences of the west coast, but we
  may understand it better if we look at the figures of annual
  rainfall. At Hokitika, and all along the west coast as far north
  as Greymouth, the fall is a hundred inches or more; while in the
  extreme south-west corner it is over two hundred. On the other
  hand, all the low-lying parts of the Canterbury Plains have less
  than thirty inches; in fact, we may compare them to the east and
  south-east districts of England. In England, as in South Island,
  we find heavy rains in the west, and the explanation is similar
  in both cases. The prevailing moist winds are from the west, so
  that the eastern plains lie under the lee of the mountains.

  [Illustration: SOUTH ISLAND: RAINFALL.]

  If we remember the latitude of South Island we might expect to
  find it rather warm; but we must take account of other things
  than latitude. It is true that there are occasional hot winds
  blowing down from the mountains over the Canterbury Plains, but
  the island as a whole is cool. The great mass of highland, with
  its winter covering of snow, the perpetual moist winds and the
  cool currents of the ocean all help to modify the heat of the
  sun’s rays, and to give us a climate not in the least enervating
  for English settlers.

  As we approach Christchurch the farms are closer together and
  the whole country is enclosed and cultivated. For mile after
  mile we run past green hedgerows as in England; and in the
  spring these are ablaze with the yellow of the gorse blossom,
  while the scent hangs heavy in the air. Then, through suburbs
  with villas and gardens, we reach the city itself. Christchurch
  is as typically English as Dunedin is Scotch. It was founded
  by an association of High Churchmen who bought land from the
  New Zealand Land Company in 1850, and it still boasts the only
  cathedral in the Dominion. Here is a general view of the city.      49
  We shall find much to remind us of England in the social life,
  the clubs and sports of the city, and its beautiful park planted
  with English trees. The Avon flows through it, with its riverside
  houses whose lawns slope down to the banks; there are willows       50
  overhanging the water and swans swimming about, and the whole
  scene might be taken for a quiet backwater on the Thames. It is     51
  often said that emigrants from Britain carry a piece of their
  homeland with them; there can be no better illustration of this
  than Christchurch and Dunedin.

  The cathedral, the parks and gardens and beautiful residences
  show us one side of English life; but Christchurch has another
  side. Its people are not idle. We see here warehouses, offices,
  and busy factories, as befits the chief centre of the whole
  Canterbury district. In one respect, however, it differs from
  the other large cities of New Zealand; it is not on the sea.
  We shall see its trade and shipping at Lyttelton, seven miles       52
  away by rail. Lyttelton lies on an arm of the sea to the north
  of the Banks Peninsula, a volcanic mass breaking the line of        53
  the long smooth coast, just as the Otago Peninsula at Dunedin.
  But the activities of the two cities are not the same: Dunedin,
  the outlet of the coal and gold-mining area of Otago, has its
  School of Mines, as well as of medicine and other subjects;
  while Christchurch, the city of the fertile plain, in addition
  to a great engineering department, has its Lincoln Agricultural
  College. Here are the college buildings, and here we see some of    54
  the students at practical work, threshing wheat in the fields.      55
  Thus we see a contrast which is purely geographical reflected in
  the world of education.

  If we follow the great plain northwards from Christchurch, we
  shall find that it narrows gradually and comes to an end at last,
  against the seaward range of the Kaikoura Mountains. Our road
  north is stopped, but we can follow the railway north-westward
  to Springfield; thence we go by coach, over the Alps through
  Arthur’s Pass and down the Otira Gorge, until we strike the short
  railway which will take us to Greymouth and the west coast. This
  is the only coach road over the Alps, and we can learn much in
  the course of our exciting forty mile run.

  We climb up, by a twisting road, over open slopes covered with
  brown tussock grass. Here and there we pass a mountain tarn,
  and all the time above us are purple mountains capped with          56
  dazzling fields of snow. We cross the saddle at the summit of
  the pass, 3000 feet above the sea, and then plunge down through
  a deep cañon gorge, following the narrow bed of a mountain          57
  stream. Instead of the open mountain side, all around us are
  high fern-clad cliffs, steep slopes and dense forest, all ablaze
  in summer with the scarlet rata blossom. We have seen, on our
  short journey, the east and the west countries, in the sharpest
  possible contrast. Soon, the rail-heads on either side will be
  linked, and a rush through miles of dark tunnel will take the
  place of the splendid drive on the coach, though doubtless many
  will still prefer the road to the rail.

  From Greymouth another line of rail and coach will take us
  through another famous gorge on a zigzag course to Nelson on
  Tasman Bay. We realise that communication in this part of the
  island is very difficult, and we shall find that the isolation of
  the different areas of settlement has been an important factor in
  the political development of New Zealand.

  Greymouth, on a small artificial harbour at the mouth of the
  river, carries on a trade in gold, coal, and timber; Westport,
  further north, owes its existence mainly to coal, though there
  are also gold mines in the country behind it. Hokitika, which we
  can reach by a short railway journey, southward from Greymouth,
  is also the outlet of a gold district. The coal in this district
  of Westland is of good quality, and some day may give rise to a
  large industrial population; at present it is mined chiefly for
  export. Here we see the little township of Brunner, with its        58
  coal mines; notice the forest and mountain in the background.
  Round Nelson there is a strip of sheltered lowland noted for its
  agriculture and fruit growing; as it was easily reached, and near
  the line of traffic through Cook Strait, the district with its
  fertile soil and mild climate was one of the earliest to attract
  settlers. Here is a view of Nelson on its little plain ringed in    59
  by bare hills.

  The mountainous north-east corner of the island, now the district
  of Marlborough, was difficult of access; so for a long time it
  had no separate existence, but was merely part of the larger        60
  province of Nelson; but now we may reach it easily by steamer and
  might spend many days exploring the inner coast and bays of the
  Sounds which penetrate deeply into the land. These Sounds are
  different from those which we visited in the south-west of the
  island. They are broad, lake-like expanses of calm water, backed
  by forested hill slopes, with here and there clearings and farms
  near the water’s edge. The early whalers established themselves
  here, and to-day it is a favourite haunt of the yachtsmen. Here
  is a view of part of Pelorus Sound.                                 61

  If we look at the structure of the island, we now see that there
  were three detached areas favourable for early settlement; Nelson
  in the north, Canterbury in the middle, and Otago in the south.
  All these were occupied separately, between the years 1840 and
  1850, and the only means of communication between them was by
  sea. We can understand why at first these districts formed
  independent Provinces, each with its own local Parliament.
  Indeed, for a few years, even the southern part of Otago enjoyed
  a separate existence as Southland. The provinces still remain as
  provincial districts for certain purposes of local government,
  though Westland, between the Alps and the sea, has been split off
  from Canterbury, and Marlborough, as we have noted, from Nelson.

  Among the cities Christchurch and Dunedin still stand alone with
  over sixty thousand inhabitants and two of the colleges of the
  University of New Zealand; while the greater part of the trade
  of the island passes through their ports. The districts behind
  them also contain the great majority of the sheep reared in the
  island. Next in importance to these cities is Invercargill, with
  less than twenty thousand inhabitants; while no other town has
  more than ten thousand. These numbers may seem small to us, but
  we must remember that they are large in proportion to the total
  population of New Zealand, which, including the Maoris, was less
  than a million in 1906. In Christchurch, in addition to the
  Cathedral and University College, we find a Supreme Court of the
  Dominion; and here we may see also the old Provincial Council
  Buildings, a remnant of the former system of government.

  Though these capital cities have attracted relatively large
  populations, yet there is not that enormous concentration of
  life and wealth in a single city which we noticed in some of
  the Australian States. The sea is partly responsible for this.
  The population tends to scatter in a fringe along the coasts,
  since the natural means of access to the agricultural and
  mining districts of the interior is from the nearest point on
  the sea-board. There is no great concentration of routes at
  any one point, and though Christchurch and Dunedin have a long
  start, many of the smaller towns are growing rapidly, through
  the development of the areas behind them. As we have seen, the
  whole structure of the country is against concentration, and
  the scattering of the population may become more rather than
  less marked as the newer districts are opened up from the coast
  inwards. The geographical conditions which controlled early
  settlement are still operative to-day.

  We have treated of the settlement of South Island as though
  the first settlers found the country uninhabited and were
  free to develop its resources as seemed best to them, with
  no difficulties in the way except those due to climate and
  structure. We have made no mention of the aborigines for the good
  reason that less than five per cent. of them are to be found in
  South Island; so that the native problem has never been of a
  serious character. The chief attraction for the Maoris lay in
  the greenstone for their weapons which the island provided; and
  though they had a few settlements on the coast, their number was
  too small to form any real obstacle to white occupation.

  The character of the climate alone would give sufficient ground
  for their avoidance of the island, as they were a race of
  immigrants from the warmer regions to the north; also, as we
  shall see later, the structure of the country was not well suited
  to their habits of life. The case is very different when we come
  to deal with North Island; we shall find the Maori there a very
  important element in the history of its development. On our way
  from Nelson we shall pass through the narrow channel between
  Rangitoto Island and the mainland, where we shall probably meet
  “Pelorus Jack,” the huge pilot fish, or rather dolphin, who
  regularly escorts vessels through the strait. He is protected
  by Act of Parliament, and is so well known that he has become       62
  a subject of Maori legends. A short steam from Pelorus Sound
  across Cook Strait brings us to North Island and within sight of
  Wellington.




  LECTURE VII

  NEW ZEALAND--NORTH ISLAND


  We may remember noticing, in our first survey, that Cook Strait
  was much shallower than the surrounding seas, and that there
  was an evident connexion between the North and South Islands         1
  of New Zealand. The strait at one point is narrower than the
  Strait of Dover, and the connexion between the two sides is
  still more clear when we look at the structure of the land. The
  parallel ranges of the Kaikoura Mountains, which we saw in the
  north-east corner of South Island, reappear on the other side
  of the strait. We can trace the continuation of the seaward
  Kaikouras in detached fragments of highland along the east coast
  of North Island; while inland there runs an unbroken range from
  the coast at Wellington right up to Cape Runaway at the eastern
  corner of the Bay of Plenty. So we have a backbone in North
  Island as well as in South Island, but on the eastern instead of
  the western side. The result is that the plains on the east are
  smaller than those in South Island. There is one of these plains
  behind Wellington and another south of Napier; the railway runs
  through them and connects up a whole string of small agricultural
  towns. North of Napier there is no railway, and the country is
  hilly or mountainous with few settlements. The whole arrangement
  is similar to that which we have seen in South Island, and is
  equally dependent on the position and structure of the main
  mountain backbone. Napier lies at the mouth of an estuary, while     2
  Wellington, the only good port in the south of the island, is in
  a drowned river valley, running up between the seaward spurs
  of the hills and sheltered by them from the gusty winds of Cook
  Strait.

  As we steam in from the sea we might well imagine that we were
  entering one of the fiords of South Island. The hills come down    3,4
  to the water’s edge so that the city which they shelter is           5
  somewhat crowded and cramped for space. The old settlement was
  on a terrace up the hill; but a modern port must be close to the
  water-level, so the wharves and warehouses are built largely on      6
  land reclaimed from the foreshore. In fact, the foundations are
  piles driven into the mud, and the buildings in the pictures
  before us seem to be growing out of the water. Here is the
  passenger wharf with our steamer, and beyond it the town in the      7
  early morning haze. From the tower of the Customs House we can
  obtain a good idea of the business part of the city. On one side
  of us are tall buildings, offices, and warehouses; on the other      8
  are factories, sheds, and railway sidings, with the harbour and      9
  shipping beyond.

  It would be a rather ugly city except for the terraced hill in
  the background, where we find some of the finest buildings. If we
  look closely at some of these, we may be struck by a remarkable
  feature in their construction; many of them are made entirely of
  wood. The chief reason for this was the fear of the earthquakes
  to which the whole of this district is subject. Here is another
  curious result of the same thing. We see a fine cricket-ground,
  on which a match is in progress between Australian and New
  Zealand teams: the ground is in the Basin Reserve, which was        10
  originally intended for a dock but was raised in level during
  the great earthquake of 1848. The Government offices are said to
  be the largest wooden buildings in the world; notice the curious    11
  style of the architecture and contrast it with some of the many
  public buildings of stone which we saw in Australia. Even the
  Houses of Parliament are of wood. Parliament meets here, since
  Wellington is now the capital and seat of Government for the
  whole Dominion. The present meeting place is the old Government     12
  House, since the former Parliamentary Buildings were burnt down
  in the summer of 1907. Only a fragment of them remains, chiefly
  the library which we see in this picture; the marble statue in      13
  front is that of John Ballance, a former Premier of New Zealand.

  Wellington, by its position, is a natural centre for politics and
  for trade, whether across the ocean or round the coasts; it is
  the chief port of the island and the starting point of a whole
  system of railways which has grown outward from it. As a trading
  centre, Auckland comes a good second, and Lyttelton third.

  We have noticed already the railway to Napier, which reminded us    14
  somewhat of that in the Canterbury district. The lines running
  to the north and north-west carry us into an entirely new type
  of country, and before following them up we must look carefully
  at the build of the island on the other side of the mountain
  backbone. Here our experience of South Island will help us
  little. Instead of a gentle uniform slope to the ocean, we find
  a confused and bewildering structure. The mountain ranges in the
  long northern neck and in the Coromandel Peninsula, with its
  continuing islands, run from north-west to south-east, almost
  at right angles to our main dividing range. In the broader part
  of the island these ranges disappear, and we have a broken
  plateau in the region round Lake Taupo with short ranges lying
  on it in irregular fashion. We may notice that rivers radiate
  from this centre in every direction except the east. Finally,
  in the south-west corner, we see an isolated and symmetrical
  mountain block. The forces at work here seem to have been very
  different from those which shaped the long ridges of South
  Island. The Taupo district will give us the key to the whole: it
  is volcanic and contains active cones, geysers, and hot springs
  in great number. There is another contrast: in the south and
  west of the island we have no fiords or inlets, but long, smooth
  coasts hollowed out into bights; whereas the north is made up of
  islands, inlets, and peninsulas. We shall see later that these
  differences in structure have more than a purely geographical
  interest, since they have had a most marked influence on the
  settlement and history of the island.

  [Illustration: NORTH ISLAND: POLITICAL.]

  Let us now start on our journey by rail and observe the country
  as we pass rapidly through it. At first we travel through open
  lands with many prosperous-looking farms. Then, as we turn
  northward on the main trunk line, the scenery gradually changes;
  there are rugged hills, plateaus with steep broken edges, and
  rivers running at the bottom of narrow gorges. The whole face of
  the country looks disturbed and unfinished, and becomes wilder
  and more desolate as we approach the volcanic district in the
  centre. At Waiouru, we leave the train and mount a coach which
  jolts us sadly over the rough roads. From the station, looking
  northward, we can see in the distance the great cone of Ruapehu,
  with slopes of dark purple and a dazzling cap of snow upon the      15
  summit. Beyond it are other cones, one of which, Ngauruhoe, we
  see here; and below us, as we drive along, is the Wangaehu, a       16
  narrow stream flowing in a dark grey bed, its waters heavily
  charged with sulphur. Further on is the Waikiti, at the bottom of
  a deep chasm.

  As we draw near to Lake Taupo we notice here and there puffs of
  steam rising from the scrub at the side of the road, and on the
  roadway we meet Maoris, tattered and dirty looking. Here we see
  two of them meeting and saluting one another by touching noses.     17
  At last we drive on to the jetty at Tokaanu at the southern end
  of the lake. There are more Maoris here and on the steam launch
  which is to take us to the other end. Taupo lies right up on the
  central volcanic plateau, and we are about to visit part of the
  great geyser region a short distance from its northern end. It
  is the largest of the lakes of New Zealand, and is interesting
  not so much for its beauty, as it has little, but for its close
  connexion with Maori history. Here is a view of the lake looking    18
  back towards Tokaanu and the volcanic range of mountains.

  A short drive from the landing place at the northern end brings
  us to Wairakei, where we walk down a pleasant green valley to
  view the geysers. First we visit the Champagne Pool, a little       19
  lake with steep red walls and deposits of white silica on the
  lower rocks. Here the water is always bubbling and spouting at
  a temperature above boiling point. The deposits of silica often
  form beautiful terraces: the most famous in the world were at
  Rotomahana, not far from Lake Rotorua which lies at the north
  end of our district. Here are two pictures of the Rotomahana        20
  terraces; notice the people bathing in the hot pools. These great   21
  terraces were destroyed by the eruption of Mount Tarawera in
  1886, but there are many smaller formations of the same kind to
  be seen in the district. Here, for instance, is one gradually       22
  being built up round the Twin Geysers.

  Further down the valley we come to the great Wairakei Geyser
  which plays for three minutes and then is quiet for eleven. Here
  is a distant view from the opposite bank of the river; and here     23
  we see the geyser at work with great vigour. Notice the curious
  projection in the foreground of the last picture; it is the trunk   24
  of a tree, petrified by the deposit of silica, which is not
  white here but pale coffee-colour. There is a rainbow, too, in
  the vapour above, which is unfortunately beyond the capacity of
  our camera. Other smaller geysers are all round us with deposits
  of claret-colour, black and yellow, due to the different salts
  dissolved in the hot water. The ground shakes with the explosions
  of steam beneath us, and everywhere is heat and vapour; yet all
  the time the cold waters of the Wairakei River are flowing by
  within a few feet of us. Scattered over the valley are beautiful
  lakes and pools of different colours. Here is one of them, the
  Blue Lake, lying in a corner of an old crater; the perpendicular    25
  walls which form the bank in front of us are white striped with
  orange.

  Everywhere in this district volcanic agencies have changed the
  face of nature. In one part we find long stretches of grey
  pumice plains, with no vegetation but dusty brown fern. In
  another part, great deposits of sulphur have been laid down over    26
  the earth. It is a country with a beauty of its own, but more
  attractive to the tourist than to the colonist and settler.
  It still remains a barrier separating the centres of white
  settlement and only recently crossed by the trunk line of railway.

  It was in this wild country, to which the rail and coach now
  bring curious visitors from all parts of the world, that not many
  years ago the Maoris made their last stand against British power.
  East and west of the lake is the King country of which we hear
  much in history; except for the tourist it is still in the main
  left to the Maoris.

  In Australia, as we have seen, the real obstacles to settlement
  were the climate and the character of the country; the aborigines
  were pushed back into the wilder districts or simply crushed out
  of existence by the civilisation of the white man. Not so the
  Maori: he has been a very important element in the life of New
  Zealand, whether as friend or enemy of the white invader, from
  the time of the earliest settlers--the whalers of Cook Strait,
  and the traders, boat-builders, and missionaries of the Bay
  of Islands which lies on the east coast of the long northern
  peninsula. The British have been settled in New Zealand barely
  three-quarters of a century, as the proclamation of annexation
  dates only from 1840; while the Maori has been in possession for
  five or six centuries at least and shows no disposition to be
  crowded out. He was, when first we met him, on a far higher level
  than the aborigines of Australia.

  Who, then, are the Maoris? They are a brown race, a race of
  seamen who came in their long double canoes from the islands to
  the north and settled along the neck of North Island--the Fish
  of Maui as they called it--and at Otago and some few other
  points in South Island. They brought with them their island
  customs, especially the division into families and clans which
  were always fighting among themselves. In New Zealand they found
  all the materials for their usual mode of existence: timber for
  their houses and sea-going canoes, native flax for the weaving
  of clothes, stones for their weapons, as they had no knowledge
  of metals; and fish everywhere in the rivers, lakes, and seas.
  So here they built their houses, with little patches of garden
  for their few vegetables, while the surrounding country was the
  common possession of the clan, whence they added roots, berries,
  and wild birds to the larder. Everywhere, in the best positions
  for defence, were dotted about their fortified enclosures, or       27
  pahs, in which they took refuge in the numerous clan feuds. Their
  religion consisted of a kind of fetichism, and their whole life
  was subject to the principle of _tapu_, or taboo as we commonly
  spell it, a principle common over all this part of the Pacific,
  and among savage races elsewhere. The Maoris were chivalrous
  fighters, eloquent orators, and careful preservers of the
  traditions of their past history. Such was the race which, in the
  nineteenth century, contested the settlement of the island with
  us.

  Here is a portrait of a chief showing the method of tattooing       28
  the face. Here again we see him with his _taiaha_, or staff of
  office: he looks civilised enough now; in fact, dressed as he       29
  is, he might be mistaken for an Englishman, but doubtless he was
  very different in the old days. He is nearly ninety years old,
  and so must have seen the settlement and fighting almost from
  the very beginning. The building behind the group is a meeting
  house of the usual Maori shape, though the galvanised iron roof
  seems scarcely to agree with the elaborate ornamentation of
  the woodwork. Notice the curious scroll carving on the fetich
  pillars: it is a favourite design among the Maoris and appears
  also in the tattooing of their bodies.

  We see the Maori here in European dress and we find him entering
  Parliament and the learned professions, or becoming a successful
  farmer and grazier in every way as civilised as ourselves. But
  he is not anxious to be a mere imitator of the white man, as
  he is intensely proud of his own race and past history. In the
  remoter districts he still clings to his ancient fashion of life.
  Here is a typical group, in native dress, and here is the simple    30
  private house of a chief. Again we have an interesting portrait     31
  of the daughter of a chief, holding her father’s heavy staff; her   32
  curious dress is largely made up of the feathers of the wingless
  Kiwi, which we have already seen.

  The Maori dances are among the most interesting of their social
  customs. We may perhaps see the _haka_, a survival of the           33
  old war-dance, performed by half-clad warriors. It is now a
  ceremonial dance of welcome. Very different is the _poi_, the       34
  pretty action-dance and song of women and girls, which we may
  see in the dancing-house of any native village. We notice that
  the costumes of the dancers are made up of native flax and
  feathers. The chief native sport is the canoe race, as the water
  is everything to the Maori. Here is one of the huge dug-out war     35
  canoes, hewn from a single tree-trunk, and now becoming somewhat
  rare; and here again we see his canoe used to mark the grave of     36
  a chief.

  We are now in the district south of the Bay of Plenty and near
  Lake Rotorua, which we reach by a railway running up the valley
  of the Thames. Here is a typical scene. In the group before us a    37
  woman is smoking a pipe; we may often see the same thing among
  the peasants of Ireland. Down below, a crowd of Maori children      38
  are bathing in the stream, while the tourists watch them from
  the bridge. The place is called Whakarewarewa, a name rather
  difficult to pronounce. This is the northern end of the geyser
  district, which we have already visited. Here we see the tourists   39
  again, with their cameras, waiting for the great Wairoa Geyser
  to start; and here is the geyser playing. Not far away are some     40
  Maori women cooking by the steam heat provided by nature.           41

  The centre of this region is Lake Rotorua, calm and cold,
  while all around on its banks are hot springs, geysers and
  boiling mud-holes. Here, where a few years ago was only bush,
  or primitive village, a fine modern town has sprung up for the      42
  benefit of the tourist in search of beautiful scenery, or the
  invalid coming to the health-giving waters. Not far away is
  another lake, Rotomahana, in a huge basin formed by the eruption    43
  which destroyed the famous terraces. Here we may enjoy the
  strange experience of boating on boiling water, with the geysers
  working all around us. Volcanic activity is everywhere in this
  wonderful country, and it is only natural that round it have
  gathered countless Maori legends.

  We can easily understand the fondness of the Maoris for the
  water. They were a race of islanders and fishermen, never really
  happy unless their houses were built close to the water’s edge.
  This determined their mode of settlement; they only took to the
  dry land of the interior as a refuge from their enemies. So we
  found them, when first we entered the island, scattered along the
  narrow part of the Fish, where are bays and inlets in abundance,
  and along the coasts of the Bay of Plenty and the Taranaki Bight.
  Lake, river, and marsh were their dwelling places; and when we
  find them established of their own will in the interior, it is
  on the banks of Lake Taupo, a small sea in their eyes. The white
  settler wanted, in the main, the drier districts for his farms
  and cattle, that is, the parts of least value to the Maori;
  but none the less, settlement was not effected without a
  generation of trouble and a long period of petty warfare.

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 105._

  OLD GOVERNMENT HOUSE: WELLINGTON.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 116._

  RAPIDS ON THE WAIKATO.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 108._

  GREAT WAIRAKEI GEYSER.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 111._

  A CHIEF’S DAUGHTER.]

  Down to 1830, except for the missionaries, the Maoris knew us
  chiefly through the trading ships which visited the islands,
  and the few white men, not real settlers, who lived the life of
  the natives and sometimes took part in their clan feuds. The
  main occupation of the Maoris was fighting among themselves; and
  it was the petition of some chiefs in the Bay of Islands for
  protection from another clan which first led to the dispatch of a
  British official from New South Wales. This official had no real
  power and depended for his information as to the natives entirely
  on the missionary interpreters. Then a Frenchman intervened, and
  in 1835 proclaimed himself sovereign of New Zealand, apparently
  on the strength of some land which he had bought years before at
  Hokianga. This led to a league of the northern tribes, headed by
  the missionaries, which demanded British protection.

  Next we hear of a French bishop setting up a mission at Hokianga,
  and a French syndicate buying land in Banks Peninsula, in 1838;
  while the English Land Company, started by Gibbon Wakefield,
  dispatched its first batch of colonists in the next year. As the
  result of these movements, the British Government was forced
  to take action, and the Governor of New South Wales promptly
  proclaimed our authority over the whole of New Zealand. His
  agent, Captain Hobson, concluded the Treaty of Waitangi, at the
  Bay of Islands, in 1840; by this agreement the native chiefs
  recognised British suzerainty. South Island was occupied just
  in time, as Hobson’s officers reached the Banks Peninsula only
  four days in advance of a French warship and party of French
  colonists. So that it was really France which hurried us on to
  the effective occupation of New Zealand.

  The later history of our relations with the natives all hinges
  on the land question. The New Zealand Company, and many private
  speculators as well, bargaining through interpreters, believed
  that they had bought enormous areas of land for a mere nothing:
  the Maoris imagined that they had sold very little. Moreover,
  it was very doubtful who really had the power to sell the land,
  since the waste lands of the Maoris were all held in common.
  To settle the disputes the Home Government sent out a special
  Commissioner who decided that most of the bargains could not be
  allowed to stand. Even so the Maoris found it hard to appreciate
  our ideas as to sale and possession of land. There was endless
  trouble until Sir George Grey was sent over from South Australia
  in 1845, learnt the native language, and reduced both sides
  to order. For comparatively small sums he succeeded in buying
  gradually those parts of the country which were most essential
  to the white settlers, while leaving plenty for the support of
  the original inhabitants; for we must remember that the Maoris
  were very few in proportion to the area of the country. Grey was
  popular with the Maoris, and when he left, in 1855, the country
  was fairly well organised.

  But the land question was not yet finally settled. In 1857, the
  Maoris tried to federate under a native king, the main object
  of the association being to oppose the further sale of land to
  the white settlers. The whole of Central Maoriland, east and
  west of Lake Taupo, was unfriendly to us. The trouble came to a
  head over a land claim in the Taranaki district, and the result
  was over ten years of raids and casual fighting which could
  hardly be called organised war, since it moved from district
  to district, and the different tribes had no common policy or
  unity. As the sections were subdued from time to time, the usual
  penalty inflicted was confiscation of land; so that by 1870
  the whole of the coast strip, from the north of Hawkes Bay
  round by Wellington to the Mokau River on the west, was in our
  possession. So, too, was all the land on both sides of the Lower
  Waikato, and a narrow fringe along the Bay of Plenty. Thus there
  was practically a ring fence put round Central Maoriland, and
  until quite recently there was no connexion between Wellington
  and Auckland across this isolated block. Sir George Grey, who
  had returned as Governor, in 1861, was largely responsible for
  laying down the lines on which the Maori problem was finally and
  successfully solved.

  One interesting result of the war was that Wellington became
  the capital instead of Auckland. Auckland was the original
  settlement, moved from the Bay of Islands in 1842, and marked
  out by Hobson as the future capital. By its position it divided
  the tribes of the north from those of the south, and this was a
  great advantage in the early days of settlement. Port Nicholson,
  later Wellington, was founded in the same year by colonists of
  the New Zealand Company; while New Plymouth, in Taranaki, was
  settled in 1841. So we have three original and contemporary
  settlements, Hawkes Bay being split off from Wellington later.
  We have already seen a similar process in South Island. After
  1865, the population of South Island increased very rapidly,
  until it exceeded that of North Island, while the Maoris in the
  latter were thought to be as numerous as the white people. It was
  inevitable that the capital should be brought nearer the centre
  of power of the white population, and so, in 1865, Wellington was
  chosen as the capital by a committee of Australians to which the
  question was referred.

  We have seen the importance of the Taupo district in past
  history, and how throughout, as in South Island, the structure
  of the country has profoundly influenced its development and
  the relations of the settlers with the Maoris. If instead of
  travelling up the trunk line of railway we had continued along
  the coast to New Plymouth, we should have realised the meaning
  of the purchase and confiscation of the narrow strip all round.
  We noticed before how the rivers radiate from the Taupo district
  in three directions to the sea; but in their upper courses they
  are of no use, since they flow between forest-clad hills, in
  deep gorges, where the stream is often broken by rapids, such as    44
  we see here, on the Upper Waikato. The river up here does not
  seem to be of much value for navigation, and though the scenery
  is beautiful the river valley is not attractive to the settler.
  Lower down it is different.

  We may reach the coast by following the line of the Wanganui,
  the most beautiful river in New Zealand. For scores of miles we
  rush down, in the little launch. In one reach the river is swift
  but smooth, running between sloping, densely forested banks; in
  another steep fern-clad cliffs close in to form a gorge through     45
  which the water foams and swirls in rapids. Above, we may catch     46
  sight of a Maori village; all the way down we meet canoes, slowly
  poling against the swift current; while lively parties of Maoris
  board us at every landing. Below Pipiriki the scenery changes,
  and near the sea we pass through open level country dotted with
  sheep and dairy farms, and these are steadily pushing the forest
  rim further back. Along the coast strip there is a whole string
  of small agricultural towns which suggest to us that the country
  round is of great value to the farmer. It is the same all the
  way to New Plymouth which lies under the shadow of Mount Egmont,
  a huge detached volcanic cone. Everywhere, in the clearings by
  the railway, are prosperous-looking dairy farms, the Taranaki
  district being specially famous for the quantity and quality of
  its dairy produce. Why is this so? The district is warm, it is
  also moist, as it lies on the west coast; in fact Mount Egmont
  enjoys the heaviest rainfall in the whole island. Here is a farm    47
  in Taranaki with the mountain in the distance, and here we have     48
  a near view of the great cone.

  The economic progress of North Island, so far as we have seen       49
  it, has consisted largely in the occupation of the lowlands near
  the river mouths, and the gradual clearing of the forest further
  inland--a rather different forest from that of South Island,
  since the climate is warmer and drier. To open up the country for
  farming we had to reduce the hunting grounds of the Maori, and
  even to drain, in spite of his opposition, some of his favourite
  marshes. As a result of the settlement we find in the south-east,
  south and south-west, butter, wool, meat and timber produced in
  large quantities; while in the centre we have nothing but the
  scenery and some forest as yet untouched.

  If we think of the products which are most valuable to New
  Zealand at the present day, we shall find that with the exception
  of timber they have been introduced from abroad by the white
  settlers and were unknown to the Maoris. But the marshland, dear
  to the Maori heart, produces one plant which was necessary to
  the natives in the past and is still very useful to us. This is
  the New Zealand flax, though it is more like hemp than the flax
  from which linen is made in the northern hemisphere. The Maoris
  wove the fibre of this plant into clothes. Here we see the long     50
  blade-like leaves being cut in the swamp; we follow it to the
  mills where it is unloaded and sorted into lengths. Inside the
  mill it is put through various processes until the fibre finally
  appears as a rope or bale of fine white twine ready for the         51
  market. In this form it is sent from the mill all over the world
  and commands prices as high as Manila hemp with which perhaps we
  are more familiar.

  We will now leave the south and pay a short visit to the
  northern districts. Here the conditions are somewhat different.
  There is gold to be found at the base of the Coromandel
  Peninsula, and it is mined largely from the quartz rock, not
  merely washed from the alluvium as in South Island. This has led
  to the growth of a group of small mining towns. There is coal,
  too, in the basin of the Waikato and in the districts north of
  Auckland. The presence of these minerals in itself would lead us
  to expect a difference between the north and south of the island;
  but the difference extends further, to the vegetable products of
  the soil. We are moving out of the west wind region into the zone
  where, as in Victoria, the greater part of the rain falls in the
  mild winter, and the summer is dry and hot though tempered by the
  nearness of the sea. It is a land where the orange and the vine
  grow well, in great contrast to the cool and moist region in the
  south of South Island. Many people find the change from Auckland
  to Dunedin or Invercargill very trying to the constitution.

  North Auckland has its forests, but they are different from those
  of the south, for here and here alone grows the Kauri pine. Here    52
  is pictured the life of the tree. First we see it growing proudly   53
  in the forest; next the lumbermen are at work on the huge trunk;    54
  finally the logs are hauled away, and at any of the little ports
  of the peninsula we may see the timber ships loading; here, for
  instance, is a Norwegian sailing ship taking in a cargo for         55
  Liverpool. The Kauri pine is responsible too for a curious local
  industry. The forests of the past have left masses of gum buried
  in the swamps, and many labourers are employed in spearing or
  digging for it. They become very expert in finding likely spots
  in which to probe. Here we have a group of Croatian diggers ready   56
  to set out for the day’s work; notice the long slender spears
  which they carry and the great swamp saw for digging out the
  gum. We may see them scraping the gum and then follow them home
  in the evening over the desolate plain to their primitive camp.     57
  It is a strange industry carried on by these foreigners, and the
  life seems hard, but the resin is one of the most useful for
  making our varnishes.

  We have already noticed the great number of bays and inlets along
  the long northern neck of the island. In the far north is the
  Bay of Islands, the site of the earliest settlement, represented    58
  now only by the small town of Russell. Fifty miles further south
  we have the deep inlet of Whangarei Harbour, where a port and
  a short railway line mark the presence of coal in the country
  behind. Finally, on Waitemata Harbour, a western arm of the wide
  Hauraki Gulf, stands Auckland, the former capital and still the     59
  largest town in New Zealand. The population of the city with its
  suburbs is now over a hundred thousand. Only eight miles away by
  rail is Onehunga, on Manukau Harbour, a gulf almost landlocked      60
  but opening into the waters of the Tasman Sea.

  The best way to appreciate Auckland is to approach it from the
  sea. As we steam along the coast from the north, on our left is
  the curiously shaped Rangitoto Island, an extinct volcano; on
  our right is a long peninsula, with two low rounded hills, also
  volcanic, joined together by a low neck of land on which stands
  the suburb of Devonport. Across this neck we get a brief glimpse
  of the city standing on two groups of small hills with narrow
  valleys running down to the harbour between them. Then we turn
  round the North Head and suddenly the whole bay, two miles broad,
  opens out before us. On our left are the residential suburbs of
  Remuera and Parnell, with houses and gardens running down to the
  water’s edge; further up the bay is the main city with its long
  quays busy with traffic, and large steamers anchored in the deep
  channel. Beyond are more suburbs, and we can follow the winding
  inlet for fifteen miles through beautiful scenery which reminds
  us somewhat of Port Jackson. On the north side again another
  city is growing up, so that Auckland seems to be built round a
  great lake, open at the two ends. The air is clear and free from
  smoke and everywhere the sparkling blue water reflects the bright
  sunshine. Here we see Auckland, looking across the water from       61
  Devonport, and here we look down on it from Mount Victoria.         62

  [Illustration: AUCKLAND.]

  Auckland, for its beauty, has been styled the Naples of the
  South, and, like Naples, it has its volcanoes. We have noticed
  some of these already, and in the neighbouring country over sixty
  small cones, such as the one before us, can be counted within a     63
  radius of ten miles. Even the hills on which the city stands are
  partly built up of volcanic debris. Fortunately for Auckland the
  volcanoes are no longer active, and it lacks also the picturesque
  dirt and squalor of Naples. It is modern, clean and prosperous.
  It has also something more than beautiful scenery to recommend
  it. Though it suffered in some ways by the removal of the capital
  to Wellington, it is still, and is likely to remain the chief
  port-of-call in the Dominion. It is near to Sydney and is the
  natural centre for the trade of the neighbouring Pacific islands.
  It is the last port of departure for vessels sailing between
  Australia and America; and when the Panama Canal is finished, it
  will stand on the shortest route from the eastern United States
  to Sydney and Melbourne, and an alternative route to the Suez
  Canal for the United Kingdom and the whole of Western Europe. It
  is the chief link connecting New Zealand with the outer world,
  and a fit point of departure for our final cruise among the
  islands to the north.




  LECTURE VIII

  FIJI AND THE WESTERN PACIFIC


  We started our tour with the great continental land-mass of
  Australia; we shall end it with a visit to some of the many
  hundred scattered islands of the Pacific which are under British     1
  control and protection. North-east from Auckland, for a thousand
  miles, we steam through the open ocean, sighting no land except
  perhaps the lonely Kermadec Islands, which are, as we have seen,
  attached to the Government of New Zealand, until we reach the
  fringe of the many groups of coral islands and reefs which fill
  so much of the Western Pacific. We shall touch first at Tonga
  Tabu, the southernmost and largest of the Friendly Islands, as
  Captain Cook called them, which lie just north of the Tropic of
  Capricorn and rather more than halfway round the globe eastward
  from London.

  At Auckland we left behind us hills and fiords; on our right as
  we enter this group is the small but high volcanic island of Eua,
  the only one in the whole group which contains a river; the main
  island, Tonga Tabu, or Holy Tonga, lies on our left, and has a
  very different aspect. A low mass, green with what prove to be
  coconut palms, rises out of white surf and spray breaking over
  reefs of coral rock. We round a low headland and thread our way
  through winding channels among the reefs; on one side is the
  low mainland, on the other a string of green islets capping the
  reefs. After anchoring in the roadstead for a visit from the         2
  doctor we are hauled alongside the little ferro-concrete wharf.
  Beyond is a picturesque white town, Nukualofa, the capital of the    3
  island.

  At the wharf half the population seems to be gathered to meet us.
  Some are clothed, native fashion, in the famous Polynesian mats
  or in the bark-cloth called _tapa_, or even in cotton; others are
  in European dress. The town with its white houses and verandas
  looks quite civilised. The inhabitants remind us of the New
  Zealand Maoris, though their colour is somewhat lighter; in fact,
  both peoples belong to the same great family, the Polynesians, or
  light-brown people of the Pacific, which is spread over many of
  the island groups which lie to the north-east and east of Tonga.
  It is this race which roused the admiration of early voyagers in
  these regions, both for its physical appearance and its character.

  The Friendly Islands, though a British Protectorate, and, as
  regards all matters in which European interests are involved,
  under the jurisdiction of the High Commissioner of the Pacific,
  still have a native king and Parliament. The inhabitants are
  Christians, and are in a sense the most school-taught people in
  the Pacific. They seem to delight especially in mathematics and
  music, while shorthand is their usual method of writing. Tonga
  was the last of the independent kingdoms to come under European
  control. It was left to us as the result of our negotiations
  with Germany, at the end of the nineteenth century, and is now
  practically an integral part of our Empire in the Pacific. During
  the fifty years before we assumed control, it had made rather
  remarkable progress, under its native ruler, King George Tubou
  I., in the adoption, or perhaps the imitation, of Western ideas.
  This was largely due to the Wesleyan missionaries, and especially
  to the work of one missionary who occupied the post of Prime
  Minister.

  We will now land and pay a call on the father of the present         4
  king. He receives us in civilised fashion on the veranda of
  his house, but we notice that chairs are provided only for the
  guests; the rest sit on the ground in native fashion. A bowl of
  _kava_ is brewed for us by pounding, squeezing and straining
  out the juice of a root of a plant belonging to the family of
  the pepper-worts. It is the native substitute for alcohol, the
  use of which by any but white people is strictly forbidden in
  Tonga. Without _kava_ drinking, no social ceremony is considered
  complete, even to-day; and it has played an important part in the
  political and religious gatherings of the past.

  Let us now look round the island. It is only about thirty miles  (2)
  long and ten wide, shaped rather like the human foot, with two
  bays running far inland in the broadest part. The streets and
  the sea front of Nukualofa are mostly covered with short grass,
  and the town is partly hidden in the groves of coconut palms.
  It is the same all over the island. In the drier season we can
  follow broad grass tracks, for the most part running round the
  island; on both sides of us is a dense growth of palms, bananas,
  and tropical trees, such as we see in the picture before us.         5
  Everything is moist and green and flat; yet, in Tonga Tabu, as in
  all the islands of this particular group, except Eua, we find no
  rivers, since the island is merely a block of coral rock, with a
  thin covering of rich soil, raised a few feet above the level of
  the sea. It is a form of coral island very common in this part of
  the Pacific.

  We now leave Tonga Tabu for the northern islands of the group.
  Our decks are crowded with passengers. The natives are fond of
  travelling, and camp out on our vessel with a miscellaneous
  collection of luggage and food, including a number of pigs. We
  are bound for the Haapai Group, through a mass of small islets
  and foaming reefs; but away to the west rise several lofty
  volcanoes, some of which are still active. We are touching here
  one of the great volcanic lines of the world, a line which we
  have already seen continued in New Zealand. Off one of these
  islands, Tofua, was the scene of the famous mutiny of the
  _Bounty_.

  We come to anchor on the leeward side of Haapai, at the one town,
  called Lifuka. There is no wharf here, and we lie a long way from
  the shore, as we see in this picture. We may land in the launch      6
  or in one of the native boats which come out to meet us; and we      7
  can survey the whole island in a short walk, as although it is
  five miles long it is less than two miles wide at the point where
  Lifuka stands. There is the same rich foliage and tropical fruit
  as in Tonga Tabu, but if we cross the island to the windward
  side we shall see a difference from our calm anchorage on the
  west. Here the south-east Trade Wind is blowing on-shore and the
  rollers are pounding incessantly and breaking into surf against      8
  the coral rocks. It is a contrast which we find in most of the
  islands in this region.

  We must hurry on to Vavau, the most northerly of the three
  main groups of the Friendly Islands. Here the main island is
  hilly, with high limestone cliffs and ridges. It is the top
  of a vast mass, heaved up by volcanic agency from the depths
  of the Pacific. So we have Vavau Sound, studded with islands
  and protected from the sea by cliffs and headlands running out
  on either hand. Here is a view of the Sound; it may remind us        9
  perhaps of a Scottish loch, until we notice the coconut trees
  covering the hills and coming right down to the water’s edge.
  Gradually the Sound narrows, and after a rather abrupt turn we
  enter the landlocked harbour of Niafu, with its little wharf and    10
  its group of houses buried in the trees. There are palms and
  bananas here as in the other islands, but Vavau is especially the
  home of the orange. The whole country round is a mass of orange
  trees, and the ripe fruit strews the grassy roads on which we
  walk. The picture is spoilt somewhat, especially near the town,
  by the style of the buildings. There is timber from New Zealand
  on the jetty, and the native grass and reed hut is giving place
  to the wooden house with galvanised iron roof, which is ugly and
  not well suited to the climate. The importance of Vavau lies in
  its deep and safe harbour, in a part of the world where such are
  somewhat rare.

  Many of the islands of this part of the Pacific are often
  inaccessible, even for small vessels. Here we have an interesting
  method of landing on them; the figure in the water is a native      11
  postman, who is swimming from our steamer to the island and
  carrying the mails sealed up in a water-tight can. The natives
  are fine swimmers and as much at home in the water as on the land.

  From Vavau, we turn north-west, and after crossing about two
  hundred miles of open ocean reach the Lau Islands. These are the
  easternmost of the Fiji Islands and are, in Fiji, often spoken
  of as the Windward Islands. Here is one of the islands of this
  group: notice the white line of the fringing coral reef.            12

  In this part of our voyage we follow the course of the Trade
  Wind, as the Tongans have done for many generations, and the
  missionaries after them. As a consequence of the easy voyage down
  wind, the Tongans have had great influence on Fijian affairs in
  the past; they even established for themselves a kingdom, in the
  Lau Group, shortly before Fiji was taken over by Britain. Great
  navigators though they were, they had less skill than the Fijians
  in boat-building and carpentry; so they came to Fiji for their
  canoes. In Fiji canoe-building is a hereditary occupation. In
  former times they used great twin canoes, with a deck between;
  but now the usual form is a single canoe with raised sides and a    13
  solid outrigger, and carrying mat sails. This canoe is capable      14
  of great speed, though it does not look very safe. It is giving
  place now to boats of a European type.

  The Fiji Islands, the most important group in this part of the      15
  Pacific, are really the higher parts of a great bank in the
  ocean; the bank is fringed by reefs and coral islands, and in the
  middle is the Koro Sea, like a vast lagoon, with a wide opening
  to the south. On the western side of the bank are the islands of
  Viti Levu and Vanua Levu; these names, in the Fijian language,
  mean respectively the “Great Viti” and the “Great Land.” These
  two islands are by far the largest in the group. Both are
  volcanic, with high mountains and long rivers, and are quite
  different from the ordinary coral island.

  We touch first at Ovalau, a small volcanic island eight miles
  by six. It lies some fifteen miles off the nearest point of
  Viti Levu, from which it is separated by shallow water much
  interrupted by reefs. Here is a view from our steamer of one end    16
  of Ovalau. We are approaching Levuka town, which stands on a
  narrow strip of lowland hemmed in by a wall of mountains. Levuka    17
  was one of the earliest settlements of the white traders, and
  at a later period was the capital of the group; but we can see
  that there is little room for expansion. So the capital has been
  transferred to Suva, on the southern side of Viti Levu, where the
  conditions are very different. Before leaving the island let us
  have a glimpse of the western side. Here we see a typical coast     18
  village; across the narrow strait is another island, and beyond
  it in the distance rise the heights of the mainland.

  On our way from Ovalau to Suva we pass near the tiny islet of
  Bau, which is so near the mainland of Viti Levu that we can walk
  almost dry-shod from one to the other at low tide. Bau, small as
  it is, was once the stronghold of the most powerful of the Fijian
  chiefs from which they long effectually resisted both Tongans
  and Europeans. The importance of Bau has departed, but its chiefs
  are still looked up to as the real aristocrats of the group, and
  their way of talking is the standard for classical Fijian.

  After passing Bau and the wide mouth of the Rewa River, we reach    19
  Suva, which lies on the margin of a wide bay almost enclosed
  by the protecting reef which we see in the foreground of the
  picture. Inside the reef is a spacious and safe anchorage for
  small or large vessels. Here is a panoramic view of the harbour;    20
  and here are some native vessels; notice that their cargo           21
  consists of bananas. The houses are partly hidden in the trees,
  so that the streets are very different from our own. Here is a
  street scene: notice that the women in the foreground are Hindus.   22
  The Fijians are darker in colour than the Tongans, and many
  still retain their strange national habit of wearing their hair
  frizzed out in a huge mop. They differ from both of the two great
  races of this part of the Pacific, from the Friendly Islanders
  whom we saw to the east and from the Solomon Islanders whom we
  shall presently see to the west. In fact, the Fijians are almost
  certainly a mixture of these two races, with the addition of yet
  other strains.

  We should expect that the mode of life and the history of the
  Fijians would differ from that of the inhabitants of the small
  coral islands, since they have for their home a comparatively
  large area of land with marked geographical peculiarities. Viti
  Levu is over eighty miles from east to west and sixty from          23
  north to south. It is a land of mountain and river; whereas the
  ordinary coral island has no rivers worth the name. A range of
  rugged mountains runs along the northern coast, at no great
  distance from the sea, the highest point being Mount Victoria,
  which rises to 4500 feet. It is from this part of the island that
  the long rivers Rewa and Singatoka flow to the south-east, and
  a smaller stream, the Ba, to the north-west. The third largest
  river, the Navua, rises in other heights towards the south of the
  island, which we shall visit later. Here is a scene on the Navua.   24
  The Rewa is long and winding, but it is navigable for shallow
  draught steamers for about forty miles from its mouth. The whole
  of the south-eastern part of the island is wet and was originally
  covered with forest; but the coast-lands to the north-west, under
  the lee of the mountain ridges, are drier and more open, as we
  may judge from this picture. We can look across the forest, with    25
  its dense undergrowth of fern and creeper, and narrow trails
  along which we walk, and see in the distance the outlines of        26
  the jagged mountains of old volcanic rock. There are no active
  volcanoes in the island, though hot springs in many parts show
  that volcanic activity is not yet entirely exhausted. Here are      27
  some of these springs.

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 128._

  BANANA BOATS: SUVA.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 131._

  COCONUT TREE.]

  [Illustration:

    _Copyright._)          (_See page 133._

  MAKING MATS: FIJI.]

  Rivers have been an important element in the making of Fijian
  history, since it is in the fertile soil of the river deltas that
  the crops of the natives flourish best. Breadfruit and coconuts,
  together with the roots of the taro and the spindle-shaped
  yam form their principal food. The taro grows best in the wet
  districts, or where there is running water; so that the natives
  have long been familiar with simple methods of irrigation. These
  staple foods are supplemented by many kinds of wild tropical
  fruits and roots. The natives have pigs and fowls, but these are
  kept for state occasions; fish is the only usual non-vegetable
  food. The Fijians are clever fishermen, whether using the spear
  or arrow or net, or the fish-fences which they build in the
  estuaries of the rivers. In fact, the island provides them amply
  with all the food which they need, though sometimes there is a
  shortage as they lack means to preserve it. The taro and yams are
  stored in earth-covered heaps, as we store potatoes; and some
  of the vegetable food supply, especially breadfruit, is buried
  in pits and used in a partially fermented state. Here we have a     28
  formal presentation of food, yams and turtle and the _yangona_
  root for making the native drink called here _yangona_ but
  elsewhere _kava_. It is a typical Fijian scene.

  The native is content to cultivate his patch of land with simple
  implements, such as the digging stick, and is not anxious to work
  harder than is necessary for his own needs. He is not very ready
  to work for a European employer, while all his traditions, and
  the communal system under which he lives, make it impossible for
  the industrious individual to accumulate any private property.

  The cultivation of produce for export is due to the initiative
  of Europeans, and is largely carried on by the East Indian
  immigrants who now form a very considerable element in the
  population. We have already noticed the Hindu women in the
  streets of Suva. For a few years, during the American Civil War,
  Fiji exported excellent cotton, but at the present day its export
  trade consists practically of sugar, copra or dried coconut,
  and bananas. The sugar-cane is a native of the wet and fertile
  lowlands of the deltas; but the cultivated kinds are mostly
  introduced from elsewhere. We find the cane fields covering much
  of the land along certain parts of the coast, and on the river
  deltas of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu; and these are connected by
  nearly two hundred miles of steam tramways, which carry the cane
  to the centrally placed mills. Here is a view across the Rewa,      29
  showing a sugar mill; inside the ugly buildings we find the
  elaborate European machinery for extracting the juice from the      30
  cane. Here again we are in the cane fields with Indian women at
  work. It is all unlike the native agriculture, though it is very    31
  profitable to Fiji, since sugar is the most valuable of all its
  exports.

  The coconut industry is far more picturesque; it is chiefly
  confined to the south side of Vanua Levu and to Taveuni and the
  other islands. The nut is grown for its kernel, which, when
  dried, is called copra, and yields the coconut oil which we use
  for various purposes. The tree grows everywhere in this region,
  but does not flourish in Viti Levu owing to an insect pest which
  seems peculiar to that island. The nut has always been much used
  by the natives for food, but it is now carefully cultivated for
  the production of copra. Here is a plantation with the bungalow     32
  of the planter; notice the hills in the background; here again
  is a tree carrying its fruit in curious clusters just below the     33
  crown of leaves. The natives, who are excellent climbers, swarm
  up the taller trees to gather any fruit which is wanted in a not    34
  quite ripe state, as for eating or drinking; but the bulk of
  the nuts, intended for copra, are allowed to ripen on the tree
  until they drop off. The ripe nuts are then cut open, the kernels   35
  extracted and dried in great trays and put into bags for shipment.

  We will now leave the coast for a short trip inland, to see
  something of the country and the people in their more primitive
  condition and less mixed type. We travel up the Rewa river for
  about twenty miles, and there turn westward across country.
  We have left behind the steamer and the European trader and
  planter and plunge suddenly into a strange and wild world. At
  our first stopping place we are entertained with a display which
  reminds us that a very short time ago the Fijians were fierce
  fighters and cannibals. This is the _meke_ or native war-dance
  and song, now only an interesting survival. First we see the
  dancers in the distance, entering the village in two lines. Their   36
  faces are hideous with lampblack and vermilion, and they wear
  strange-looking dresses made of leaves. They go through many
  complicated evolutions. They rush towards us, stabbing with
  their long spears and swinging their formidable clubs, and as
  suddenly rush away. They stamp and charge and shout and imitate
  all the movements of a battle. Finally they subside quietly.        37
  The women also have their special dance, of which we have here
  a picture. The war-dance is now only a game, but it was far         38
  different before our occupation of the islands. Though we still
  utilise the old tribal organisation, and govern them through
  their native chiefs and councils, we have forced the Fijians to
  understand that fighting, raids and massacres are an amusement      39
  no longer permitted. The constabulary, which we see here with
  their rifles and maxim guns, serve generally only in the coast
  regions, where they represent a form of law and order which the
  Fijians readily understand; but even in the interior certain
  Fijians, less formally organised into a sort of rural police,
  keep effective order. Our little trip might not have been so safe
  or pleasant forty years ago.

  We now leave the Rewa and strike across country south-westward.
  Our road is a mere track, and often we find streams to be crossed
  but no bridges to help us. To our carriers this does not matter,
  as they are not overburdened with clothes. They plunge in and       40
  wade through the shallows, and they will carry us if necessary.
  On the wider streams canoes must be used, or a bamboo raft lashed
  roughly together. We may notice that our carriers have slung our
  baggage on poles carried on the shoulders of one or two men;
  this is the regular native means of transport, for carts are
  only used near the plantations, and by Europeans, where roads
  are available. In the old time the women would have carried the
  burdens, as it was thought beneath the dignity of a man to carry
  anything but his weapons.

  Presently we reach a village where we discover an interesting
  native industry, the making of mats from a kind of reed. Here       41
  we see girls at work weaving the mats, and in one of the native
  huts they are making baskets from the same material. The Fijians
  are clever at this work, and both mats and baskets are important
  articles in their daily life. They also used to make a peculiar
  but very artistic pottery, such as we do not find in the islands
  of Polynesia further east; but this art is no longer practised      42
  except in a few places, and for the production of pots for
  domestic use.

  Perhaps the most noteworthy native manufacture is that of _tapa_
  cloth for their dress. _Tapa_ is made by beating out the fibrous
  bark of the paper mulberry, and sometimes of certain other trees.
  The art is known in Polynesia generally, and the Fijians, like
  many of the other islanders, also print the cloth in various
  patterns and colours.

  We continue our march, passing many villages. Here is a corner
  in one of them; notice the native huts of grass and reeds, very     43
  different from the wood and corrugated iron of Suva. Notice,
  too, the coconut palms growing all around. Here again we have       44
  a more elaborately finished house, in the old style; and here
  is the interior of the home of a chief; it looks somewhat           45
  unfurnished to our eyes, though it is cool and airy. At the next
  village the natives receive us with a solemn presentation of
  food and _yangona_ in a rather dark hut. Here they are making
  the _yangona_. Finally we reach Namosi, a picturesque native        46
  town perched up in the mountains. The town lies in a kind of
  pass between steep rocks, the “Gate of Namosi,” as we see in the    47
  picture. The inhabitants are summoned together by the beating of
  the town drum, a hollow log of wood, and receive us sitting on
  the ground beneath an ancient tree. We have reached the limit of    48
  our journey; but short though it is, it has given us some idea
  of the real Fijian as he is to-day, away from direct European
  influence.

  The conditions in the other large island, Vanua Levu, are much
  the same as in Viti Levu. The island is long and narrow, but
  with the same irregular mountain structure, the same vegetation
  and the same contrast of wet and dry on the opposite coasts. We
  may remember that Ovalau, off the coast of Viti Levu, was much
  concerned in the past with the politics of the neighbouring
  mainland; the same was true of Taveuni off Vanua Levu. The
  dwellers on the rich coastlands of the larger islands led a very
  uncertain life between the raiders from the sea and the wild
  tribes of the interior. The sea was always the more important
  factor in the life of the whole group of islands; it united,
  while the land more often divided. We have already noted its
  importance in the relations of Fiji and the Friendly Islands.

  Before we leave Fiji it is interesting to note that the line
  which divides East from West passes through this group, cutting
  the island of Taveuni into two; so that in one part of Taveuni we
  can stand with one foot in the East and the other in the West,
  or in other words, one foot may be in a place nearly twenty-four
  hours ahead of that occupied by the other according to Greenwich
  Time.

  The Fiji Islands are governed as a Crown Colony--the only Colony
  so governed in the Pacific; and hitherto the Governor of that
  Colony has also been High Commissioner for the Western Pacific,
  that is to say, he has been in charge of most of the scattered
  islands in the Pacific which are more or less under British
  protection. We have already visited one of his charges, the
  Friendly or Tongan Islands. The number of these islands under
  the High Commissioner is very great, but unfortunately there
  is no regular means of communication between Fiji and most of
  them. Every month a steamer starts from Auckland, calls at Tonga
  Tabu, Haapai and Vavau, and then goes on to Levuka and Suva,
  exactly along the route which we have followed. But from Suva
  this steamer goes on to Sydney in Australia. Once a month, too,
  a steamer starts from Sydney, along the same route but in the
  reverse direction, to Auckland. With none of the other islands
  is there any direct means of communication; and when the High
  Commissioner wishes to visit them he must go round in a warship.
  We will accompany him on one of these tours, in order to see
  something of the other British islands.

  [Illustration: FUNAFUTI.

  The dotted portion represents the coral reefs, the black portion
  land, and the arrows mark the deep-water channels.]

  Starting from Suva we steam a little west of north, along the
  chain of the Ellice and Gilbert Islands, which reaches quite up
  to the equator. These islands are all coral atolls; Funafuti, in
  the Ellice Group, serves as a type of all the rest. It consists     49
  of a lagoon, about twelve miles across, roughly circular and
  surrounded by a reef; the top of this reef appears here and there
  above water in the form of coral islets, the largest of which
  is Funafuti proper. The whole atoll is merely the coral-rimmed
  summit of a huge mountain rising from the great depths of the
  Pacific. Funafuti is a complicated atoll; many of the smaller
  islands of the Fijian group are volcanic, and show a different
  kind of structure. In these we sometimes find the old crater
  filled with water, while the remnants of the slopes of the
  volcano form the shores of the lagoon. A good instance of this
  structure is Totoya, towards the south-east of the Fijian group.    50
  Here the enclosing rim rises to over a thousand feet, but the
  sea has broken through on the south and formed a lagoon. The
  entrance is almost closed by the coral reef which encircles the
  whole of the outside of the island. Coral reefs grow everywhere
  if the water is shallow enough, so that we find reefs not only
  around the coasts of the islands but growing on banks which are
  isolated and entirely covered by the sea.

  [Illustration: TOTOYA.

  The dotted portions represent coral reefs.]

  North of the Ellice Islands are the Gilberts, arranged also
  in rows from south-east to north-west. They, too, are coral
  atolls, with a thin soil which will grow nothing but coconuts and
  screw pines; none the less, on coconuts and fish a fairly dense
  population supports itself. They are, as we might expect, less
  civilised here than in the larger islands which we have visited
  further south.

  From the Gilberts we turn south-west to visit another great row
  of islands, the Solomons and New Hebrides. On our way we pass
  Ocean Island, a small dot isolated from the rest of the Gilbert
  Group. Here we find, in addition to the natives, a considerable
  number of Europeans. The island is being exploited commercially,
  but instead of making copra they are digging out valuable
  deposits of phosphates. Here are some of the natives, and here is   51
  a picture showing the excavation of the phosphatic coral rock.      52

  Ocean Island has for us a further interest. North-west of it
  lies Nauru, where also phosphates are obtained. Nauru belongs to
  Germany, and the dividing line between the British and German
  spheres runs between the two islands. If we follow the line
  south-west, we see that it cuts through the Solomons and then
  turns sharply west to New Guinea which it divides roughly into
  halves. Germany shares with the United States the Samoa Islands,
  north-east of Tonga, but her main sphere of influence is in this
  western area.

  On our voyage to the Solomons we pass another curious island, or
  rather group of islands. This is Ongtong Java, where the people
  differ from those of the islands which we have visited up to this
  point. We are approaching a region where we know little of the
  character and origin of the natives, a region more backward and
  savage than any other part of our dominions in the Pacific.

  The Solomons consist of a double row of long and narrow islands,
  with high mountain ridges and many volcanoes, some extinct,
  others still active. The largest island, Bougainville, at the
  north end, is German; the rest are British. They have long
  been known to explorers, but until recently their history
  tells chiefly of resistance by the natives against Europeans
  who have attempted to open up intercourse with them. Lately,
  thanks to the good influence of the missionaries, and perhaps
  still more to the better regulations made by the agents of the
  British Government for intercourse between the wild men and the
  Europeans, considerable advance has been made, and plantations of
  coconut and other valuable products have been established in many
  of the larger islands. Many of the tribes, however, are still
  head-hunters and cannibals. The islands are covered with great
  forests, and the plants and animals, as well as the natives,
  resemble to some degree those found in New Guinea. The people go
  naked for the most part, except for necklaces and bracelets of
  shells and teeth. Their houses are often built on piles, like       53
  those of the Papuans. Here we see a group engaged in a war-dance,
  and here is one of their curiously ornamented canoes.               54

  South-east of the Solomons we pass the Santa Cruz Group; the
  name, as do many other names in this part of the world, reminds
  us again of the early voyages of de Quiros the Spaniard, who at
  the end of the sixteenth century first discovered these distant
  islands. Spain has disappeared from this part of the Pacific,
  and the region of islands is divided between Germany to the
  north, Britain in the Solomons, and Britain and France in the New
  Hebrides.

  Southward from Santa Cruz we pass almost at once the northernmost
  of the long chain of the New Hebrides, discovered towards the
  end of the eighteenth century, almost simultaneously, by our
  own Captain Cook and by the great French admiral Bougainville.
  Northernmost of all, in the sphere of joint Anglo-French
  influence, we pass the Torres and Banks Islands, great centres of
  the famous Melanesian mission. Next we come to Espiritu Santo, or
  Santo for short, at the northern end of which is the great Bay
  of St. Philip and St. James, within which, four centuries ago,
  Quiros built a town--a town which lasted but a few months. He
  rejoiced greatly because he thought that in that newly discovered
  land he had reached the beginning of the great Southern Continent
  which was supposed to extend thence to the Antarctic regions.

  Here and there round Santo there are a few mission stations,
  and a few fairly prosperous plantations, some English and some
  French; but the natives in the interior are still very wild
  and occasionally raid the European settlements. Here we see a
  vast crowd of natives celebrating a feast. Now it is a peaceful     55
  ceremony: it was far different in the past.

  Next, still steaming southward, we pass between two rows of
  islands, until, about where the two rows join, we come to the
  Island of Efate, with its growing town of Vila, the centre of
  Anglo-French administration. Here is the seat of the Joint Court,
  and many buildings of almost European type have recently been
  erected for its use.

  Still further south the New Hebrides reach, now in a single line,
  almost down to the Loyalty Islands and New Caledonia. These last
  two places are, however, purely French possessions, and we may
  pass them by.

  From Vila the Governor in his warship would probably return
  eastward to Fiji. We may leave him at Vila and take either the
  French or the British steamer, which calls there once a month,
  and so make our way direct to Sydney. But before leaving the
  subject of the New Hebrides we may note that the islands of this
  group are largely volcanic, and the people are not unlike those
  of the Solomons, though perhaps rather less savage. Here we have
  a picture showing their former method of receiving visitors.        56
  It was from these two groups that the brown labour for the
  Queensland plantations was largely recruited in times past. The
  New Hebrides are fertile, though not healthy for Europeans; and
  when they have been reduced to some order by white administration
  they may develop a trade with Australia in various vegetable
  products; since they are not limited to the coconut as are so
  many of the coral atolls. The picture before us with its coral      57
  reefs, its forest and its background of volcanic hills, gives a
  very good idea of the scenery of these islands.

  We have now completed the circuit of our chief possessions in the
  Western Pacific. There still remain a few detached islands and
  groups on its eastern borders which are under the jurisdiction of
  the High Commissioner. Of these only two are of much interest.

  Fanning Island lies almost in mid-Pacific, and halfway along
  the usual route from Sydney to Vancouver. A steamer from Sydney
  travels 1700 miles to its first stop at Suva; then 1900 on to
  Fanning Island; thence 3400 to Vancouver, the starting place
  of the Canadian-Pacific route to Europe. Fanning Island is in
  consequence the mid-Pacific station of the Pacific cable. The
  island and its near neighbour, Washington Island, are small coral
  islands with lagoons, on which coconuts have long been profitably
  cultivated. Both also have valuable deposits of phosphates, due
  to the age-long deposit of the droppings of countless seabirds
  on the decomposing coral. These phosphates, as well as the
  very abundant coconuts, are already exported, and their value
  is likely to increase considerably before long. Moreover, the
  probability that Fanning Island may be made into a shelter and
  repairing station for vessels crossing the Pacific adds largely
  to its value as an asset of the Empire. Here are two pictures of    58
  the island, typical of the kind of coral atoll which is found       59
  isolated in the Pacific, instead of being, as are most of the
  others which we have seen, a member of a group.

  Far away to the south-east, almost on the Tropic, and halfway       60
  to South America, lies the lonely Pitcairn Island, to which a
  few other scattered islets, British possessions, are attached.
  Pitcairn has a population of about a hundred and fifty souls,
  descendants of the mutineers of the _Bounty_, who settled here
  with their native wives in 1789. The present occupants represent
  those who returned after the experiment of removing to Norfolk
  Island in 1856. They had found themselves overcrowded, since
  Pitcairn is a tiny island only two miles long by three-quarters
  wide, rocky and volcanic, though fertile. The island is of great
  interest from the point of view of the history of the Pacific,
  since there are remains on it of stone monuments, weapons, and
  images which prove that even in this distant corner of the ocean
  some early people must have settled long before the Polynesians.
  In fact, there are traces of such settlements all over the          61
  Pacific, which suggest that the Polynesians themselves are merely
  modern colonists, occupying the homes of an earlier and perhaps
  more civilised race.




List of Slides

[_The titles printed in heavy type are those of the Maps and
Illustrations appearing in the book._]


LECTURE I

  _Slide No._

   1. Chart of Tasman’s Voyage, 1642.
   2. Off Chatham Island, West Australia.
   3. Coast Scene, West Australia.
   =4. Map of Hollandia Nova; Pieter Goos.=
   =5. Map of New Holland; R. de Vagondy.=
   6. Statue of Captain Cook.
   7. The _Endeavour_ off New Zealand.
   8. Chart of Cook’s Voyage, 1769-70.
   9. A Wallaby.
  10. Rat Kangaroo.
  11. Phalanger.
  =12. Native Bear.=
  13. Native Bear and Child.
  14. Tasmanian Devil.
  15. Tasmanian Wolf.
  16. Duck-billed Platypus.
  17. Dingo.
  18. Lyre Bird.
  =19. Emu.=
  20. Gum-Tree Blossom.
  21. Laughing Jackasses.
  22. Black Swan.
  23. Palms at Brisbane.
  24. Palm Scrub, near Cairns.
  25. Tropical Bush, Lake Eachem.
  =26. Gum Trees.=
  27. Mulga Scrub.
  28. Salt Bush.
  29. Spinifex.
  30. A Desert Scene, West Australia.
  31. A Desert Scene, Central Australia.
  32. Watercourse, in Dry Season.
  33. Grass Trees.
  34. Grass Trees and Red Gums.
  35. Grass Trees.
  36. Aboriginal Rock Shelter.
  =37. Natives fishing.=
  38. Armed Natives, at a Pool.
  39. Throwing the Boomerang.
  40. Native climbing a Tree.
  41. Anthony Anderson.
  42. Native Paintings.
  43. Native Paintings.
  44. Corroboree.
  45. Native Reserve, Victoria.
  46. Group of Natives, Queensland.
  47. A Native Woman, Queensland.
  48. Orographical Map of Australia.
  49. New Zealand, Bush Scene.
  50. Kiwi.
  51. Takahe.
  52. Skeleton of Moa.
  53. Moa restored.
  54. Tuatara.


LECTURE II

   1. The Heads, Port Jackson.
   2. Middle Harbour, Port Jackson.
   3. Sailing Ships entering Port Jackson.
   4. Circular Quay, Sydney.
   5. Darling Harbour.
   =6. Chart of Port Jackson.=
   7. Warships in Farm Cove.
   8. View over Farm Cove.
   9. Old Sydney.
  10. George Street, Sydney.
  11. Martin Place, Sydney.
  =12. Orographical Map of New South Wales.=
  13. Map of Railways and Sydney Coal Field.
  14. Hetton Colliery, Newcastle.
  15. Newcastle Harbour.
  16. Coal Cliff Colliery.
  17. A Waterfall in the Blue Mountains.
  =18. Govett’s Leap, Blue Mountains.=
  19. Limestone Arch, Jenolan.
  20. Limestone Gorge, Jenolan.
  21. The Broken Column, Jenolan Caves.
  22. Lithgow.
  23. A Farm in the Tamworth Country.
  24. Reapers at Work, Tamworth.
  25. Rainfall Map of New South Wales.
  26. Map of Eastern United States on Eastern Australia.
  27. Carting Wool.
  28. Sheep at Shearing Shed.
  29. Wool Show-room, Sydney.
  30. A Flock of Shorn Sheep.
  31. A Lagoon on the Murrumbidgee.
  =32. The Murray in Flood.=
  33. Bridge over the Murray.
  34. Crossing a Creek, Murray District.
  35. Steamer on the Murray.
  36. A Broken Hill Mine.
  37. A Camel Team, Broken Hill.
  38. Reservoir, Broken Hill.
  39. The Snowy River.
  40. A Tributary of the Snowy River.
  41. Motoring to Kosciusko.
  42. Hotel at Kosciusko.
  43. The Summit of Kosciusko, before Sunset.
  44. Surveying the Site at Yass.
  45. Surveyors’ Camp, Yass.
  =46. Yass Canberra Site.=
  47. A Dairy Farm on the Coast.
  48. Blackbutt Tree.
  49. A Timber Team.
  50. Map of Papua.
  51. Papuan Natives.
  52. Papuan Girl.
  53. A Native Town.
  54. Native Houses.
  55. A Village Constable, Papua.
  56. Armed Constabulary, Papua.
  57. A Bush Track.
  58. Carriers crossing a Stream.
  59. A Native Bridge.
  60. Natives of the Main Range.
  61. A European House, Port Moresby.
  62. Steamer at Port Moresby.


LECTURE III

   1. Wallangarra Station.
   =2. Orographical Map of Queensland.=
   =3. Rainfall Map of Queensland.=
   4. Victoria Bridge, Brisbane.
   5. South Brisbane.
   6. The River, near Brisbane.
   7. Executive Buildings, Brisbane.
   8. Parliament Houses, Brisbane.
   9. Queen Street, Brisbane.
  =10. Natural Grass, Darling Downs.=
  11. Sheep on Downs, near Warwick.
  12. A Rancher’s Station, Roma.
  13. Toowoomba.
  =14. Gladstone.=
  15. Harbour and Jetty, Gladstone.
  16. Bridge on Fitzroy River.
  17. Loading Frozen Meat.
  18. Railway Map of Queensland.
  19. A Settler’s Camp, Queensland.
  20. A New Homestead.
  21. Cattle on Ringbarked Country.
  22. Queensland Karri Pine.
  23. Trainload of Sleepers.
  =24. Townsville Harbour.=
  25. Jetty at Townsville.
  26. Landing Cattle at Bowen.
  27. Cattle, Central Queensland.
  28. Cattle on Coast Farm.
  29. Clearing Palm-scrub.
  30. Irrigated Sugar-cane.
  31. Cutting Sugar-cane.
  32. Trainload of Sugar-cane.
  33. Banana Plantation.
  34. Shipping Bananas, Johnston River.
  35. Coffee Plantation, Kuranda.
  36. Pruning a Coffee Bush.
  37. Java Coffee Bush.
  38. Avenue of Palms, Kamerunga.
  39. Rubber Plantation.
  40. Tapping Rubber.
  41. African Rubber Tree.
  42. Sisal Hemp.
  43. Picking Cotton.
  44. A Street in Cairns.
  45. Bellenden Ker Range.
  =46. Above the Barron Falls.=
  47. Barron Falls.
  48. Barron Falls.
  49. On the Cairns Railway.
  50. Atherton.
  51. A Chinese Joss House.
  52. Fig Trees, Atherton.
  53. A Tropical Garden, North Queensland.
  54. Mount Morgan.
  55. Crushing the Ore, Mount Morgan.
  56. Herberton, a Tin Township.
  57. A Copper Mine, Queensland.
  58. Artesian Bore.
  59. Chart of part of the Barrier Reef.
  60. View on the Barrier Reef.
  61. Bêche de Mer.


LECTURE IV

   1. Orographical Map of Victoria.
   2. A Coast Lagoon, Victoria.
   =3. Chart of Port Phillip.=
   4. Collins Street, Melbourne.
   5. Bourke Street, Melbourne.
   6. Treasury Offices, Melbourne.
   7. Interior of Mount Franklin.
   8. In the Victorian Valley.
   9. String of Draught Horses.
  10. Horses in Park.
  11. A Race Meeting.
  12. Railway Map of Victoria.
  =13. On the Banks of the Yarra.=
  14. Bridge over the Yarra.
  15. Camp of Boy Scouts.
  16. A Boy Scout.
  17. Healesville.
  18. Gum Logs.
  19. House at Black’s Spur.
  20. Woods near Mount Macedon.
  21. Sturt Street, Ballarat.
  22. Sturt Street, Ballarat.
  23. Botanical Gardens, Ballarat.
  24. Sinking a Shaft for Gold.
  =25. Washing Gold Dust.=
  26. Gold Mine, Bendigo.
  27. An Outcrop of Quartz.
  28. Rainfall Map of Victoria.
  29. Rolling down Mallee Scrub.
  30. Impounding a Stream.
  31. Excavation of a Reservoir.
  32. An Irrigation Channel.
  33. A Pumping Station.
  34. Chart of Banks Strait.
  35. The Tamar at Launceston.
  36. View of Launceston.
  =37. King’s Bridge, Launceston.=
  38. Cataract Gorge, Launceston.
  39. Power Station, Cataract Gorge.
  40. Apple Orchards, on the Tamar.
  =41. Orographical Map of Tasmania.=
  42. Railway Map of Tasmania.
  43. Team of Oxen, Scottsdale.
  44. Sheep on the Road, Scottsdale.
  45. The Forest, from the Train, Western Tasmania.
  46. A River Gorge, Western Tasmania.
  47. View near Zeehan.
  48. Main Street, Zeehan.
  49. A Smeltery, Zeehan.
  50. Strahan Bay.
  51. Queenstown.
  52. Gormanston.
  53. The Open Cut, Mount Lyell Mines.
  54. Mount Lyell Smelteries.
  55. View of Queenstown.
  56. View of Hobart.
  57. Hobart from the Water.
  58. Fern-Tree Gully, Hobart.
  59. Government House, Hobart.
  60. Mount Wellington.
  61. Orchards, Franklin.
  =62. Scaffolding a Tree.=
  63. Loading Logs.
  64. A Saw Mill, Geeveston.
  65. Timber on the Wharf, Geeveston.


LECTURE V

   1. Wharf at Port Adelaide.
   2. King William Street, Adelaide.
   3. The Torrens River.
   4. City Bridge, Adelaide.
   5. A Street in Adelaide.
   6. The Post Office, Adelaide.
   7. Judge’s Garden, Adelaide.
   =8. Adelaide, looking south-east.=
   =9. Orographical Map of South Australia.=
  10. Mount Gambier Lakes.
  11. A Waterfall, Mount Lofty.
  12. Orchards and Vineyards, Adelaide.
  13. An Orange Tree.
  14. Drying Raisins.
  15. Loading a Steamer on the Murray.
  16. A Salt Lake, Yorke Peninsula.
  17. Railway Map of South Australia.
  18. An Out-Station, South Australia.
  19. Camel Team, in the far North.
  20. Rainfall Map of South Australia.
  21. Copper Mines, Wallaroo.
  22. Copper Mines, Moonta.
  23. Wharf, Port Pirie.
  24. Smelting Works, Port Pirie.
  25. Map of Desert Journeys.
  26. Orographical Map of Western Australia.
  27. Chart of the Swan River.
  28. Fremantle.
  29. On the Swan River.
  30. Perth, from King’s Park.
  31. St. George’s Terrace, Perth.
  32. Garden with Lemon Trees, Perth.
  33. The Countryside, near Perth.
  34. A Black Gin.
  35. View of York.
  36. A Flour Mill, York.
  37. Church on the River, York.
  38. The King’s Head, York.
  =39. Rainfall Map of Western Australia.=
  40. Jarrah Trees.
  42. Red Gums and Chalk Hills.
  43. Everlasting Flowers.
  44. View of Albany.
  45. Chart of King George’s Sound.
  46. Kalgoorlie.
  47. A Pool, in Rainy Season.
  48. Lake Violet, after Rain.
  49. Salt Flats, Kalgoorlie.
  =50. Mundaring Weir.=
  51. Beginning of Mining.
  52. Boring for Alluvial Gold.
  53. Gold Workings, burrowing.
  =54. Alluvial Mining, sluicing.=
  55. Fraser’s Gold Mine.
  56. Cyanide Vats.
  57. An Open Cut.
  58. A Quartz Reef.
  59. Granite Rocks and Tank.
  =60. Limestone Cliffs, in the Great Bight.=
  61. Springs, in the Great Bight.


LECTURE VI

   1. The Bluff, Invercargill.
   2. Dee Street, Invercargill.
   =3. Orographical Map of South Island.=
   4. Lumsden.
   5. On the Road to Manapouri.
   6. The Pier, Manapouri.
   7. Launch, on Manapouri.
   8. Hunter Mountains.
   9. Cathedral Peaks.
  10. Spire Peak.
  11. In the Mackinnon Pass.
  12. Mount Elliott.
  13. A Dry Creek, Mackinnon Pass.
  14. Dawn, on the Clinton River.
  15. Donald Sutherland.
  16. Bowen Falls, Milford Sound.
  17. Mitre Peak.
  18. Two-man Beach.
  =19. Entrance to Milford Sound.=
  20. Map of the Sounds.
  21. Sutherland Falls.
  22. A Gold Dredger.
  23. Map of Otago Peninsula.
  =24. Dunedin.=
  25. Dunedin.
  26. Interior of Woollen Mill.
  27. St. Clair Beach, Dunedin.
  28. Port Chalmers, looking east.
  29. Railway Map of South Island.
  30. Burke’s Pass.
  31. Suspension Bridge, Tekapo.
  32. A Boundary Dog.
  33. Mount Cook, from Pukaki.
  34. Mount Sefton, from the Hermitage.
  35. The Hermitage, under Snow.
  36. Crossing the Hooker River.
  37. Hooker River, in Flood.
  38. The Mueller Glacier, terminal Moraine.
  =39. Looking up Tasman Glacier.=
  40. Head of Tasman Glacier.
  41. Ice River, on Tasman Glacier.
  42. Hochstetter Ice Falls.
  43. Mount Cook.
  44. Summit of Mount Cook.
  45. Sheep in Canterbury District.
  46. A Farm in the Canterbury Plains.
  47. Reaping, in the Canterbury Plains.
  =48. Rainfall Map of South Island.=
  49. Panorama of Christchurch.
  =50. The Avon, Christchurch.=
  51. Private Residence, on the Avon.
  52. Lyttelton.
  53. Chart of Banks Peninsula.
  54 Lincoln Agricultural College.
  55. Lincoln College, Threshing Wheat.
  56. Otira Pass, the Summit.
  57. In the Otira Gorge.
  58. Brunner.
  59. Nelson.
  60. Map of Marlborough Sounds.
  61. Pelorus Sound.
  62. Pelorus Jack.


LECTURE VII

   1. Orographical Map of North Island.
   2. Napier.
   3. Approaching Wellington.
   4. Chart of Wellington Harbour.
   5. Wellington Harbour.
   6. Wharves on Reclaimed Land, Wellington.
   7. Passenger Wharf, Wellington.
   8. View from Customs Tower.
   9. View from Customs Tower, looking north-east.
  10. The Basin Reserve.
  11. Government Buildings.
  =12. Old Government House.=
  13. Remains of Parliamentary Buildings.
  =14. Political Map of North Island.=
  15. Mount Ruapehu, distant view.
  16. Mount Ngauruhoe.
  17. Maori Women, greeting.
  18. Taupo, looking towards Tokaano.
  19. The Champagne Pool.
  20. Rotomahana Terraces.
  21. Rotomahana Terraces.
  22. Twin Geyser and Terraces.
  =23. The Great Wairakei Geyser.=
  24. The Geyser at Work.
  25. Lake Perariri.
  26. Sulphur Beds.
  27. Remains of a Maori Pah.
  28. Portrait of Maori Chief.
  29. Maori Chief, with Staff.
  30. Group of Maoris in Native Dress.
  31. House of a Chief.
  =32. A Chief’s Daughter, with Staff.=
  33. Maori Haka.
  34. A Poi Dance.
  35. Maori War Canoe.
  36. Grave of Maori Chief.
  37. Woman smoking.
  38. Children bathing.
  39. Tourists round a Geyser.
  40. Wairoa Geyser, playing.
  41. Cooking in Steam Holes.
  42. A Maori Village, Lake Rotorua.
  43. Hot Lake, Rotorua.
  =44. Rapids on the Waikato.=
  45. On the Wanganui.
  46. Rapids on the Wanganui.
  47. Dairy Cattle, Taranaki.
  48. Mount Egmont.
  49. Rainfall Map of North Island.
  50. Cutting Flax.
  51. Flax in the Bale.
  52. Kauri Tree.
  53. Cutting down Kauri.
  54. Hauling Kauri Logs.
  55. Ship, loading Kauri.
  56. Gum Diggers.
  57. Camp of Gum Diggers.
  58. Russell, Bay of Islands.
  =59. Chart of Auckland.=
  60. Chart of Manukau.
  61. Auckland, from Devonport.
  62. View of Auckland, from Mount Victoria.
  63. An Extinct Volcano, Auckland.


LECTURE VIII

   1. Map of Western Pacific.
   2. Map of Tongatabu.
   3. Nukualofa.
   4. George Fatafehi and Household.
   5. A Road in Tonga.
   6. Launch coming out, Lifuka.
   7. Native Travellers, Haapai.
   8. Surf on Windward Beach.
   9. Vavau Sound.
  10. The Wharf, Niafu.
  11. Swimming with the Mails.
  12. Lau Island.
  13. Fijian Canoe.
  14. Canoes with Mat Sails.
  15. Map of Fiji Islands.
  16. One End of Ovalau.
  17. Levuka Town.
  18. Coast Village, Ovalau.
  19. Entering Suva Harbour.
  20. Panorama of Suva Harbour.
  =21. Banana Boats, Suva.=
  22. Street Scene, Suva.
  23. Map of Viti Levu.
  24. On the Navua River.
  25. View on the North Side of Viti Levu.
  26. Forest and Mountain, Viti Levu.
  27. Hot Springs, Fiji.
  28. A Presentation of Food.
  29. Sugar Mill, on Rewa River.
  30. Interior of Sugar Mill.
  31. A Sugar Estate, Fiji.
  32. Coconut Plantation.
  =33. Coconut Tree, with Fruit.=
  34. Natives climbing Trees.
  35. Cutting Copra.
  36. Men’s Meke.
  37. Group of Dancers.
  38. Women’s Meke.
  39. Fiji Constabulary.
  40. Fording a River, Viti Levu.
  =41. Making Mats.=
  42. Making Pottery.
  43. A Fijian Village.
  44. Fijian House, Old Style.
  45. Interior of Chief’s House.
  46. Yangona Drinking.
  47. The Gate of Namosi.
  48. The Town Drum, Namosi.
  =49. Chart of Funafuti.=
  =50. Chart of Totoya.=
  51. Ocean Islanders.
  52. Phosphate Deposits, Ocean Island.
  53. Solomon Islands, War Dance.
  54. Solomon Islands, Canoe.
  55. Native Feast, New Hebrides.
  56. Attack on a Missionary.
  57. Coast View, New Hebrides.
  58. Fanning Island.
  59. Fanning Island.
  60. Pitcairn Island.
  61. Stone Ruins, Tonga.


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