occupations than that of gold-digging. "Let us cherish no delusions," said a San Francisco preacher on a certain occasion; "no society has ever been able to organize itself in a satisfactory manner on gold-bearing soil. Even Nature herself is deceitful; she corrupts, seduces, and betrays man; she laughs at his labor, she turns his toil into gambling, and his word into a lie!" The preacher's deductions have proved true as regards bodies of miners in California, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. And yet the finding of gold mines has stimulated labor, immigration, and manly activity in many directions, and has thus been the agent of undoubted good in other fields than its own.
Adelaide, with a population of a hundred and fifty thousand, has a noble university, quite equal in standing to that of any city in the country. When we remember how youthful she is, it becomes a matter of surprise that such a condition has been achieved in all the appointments which go to make up a great city in modern times. The same remark applies to all of the Australian capitals, none of which are deficient in hospitals, libraries, schools, asylums, art galleries, and charitable institutions generally. Few European cities of twice the size of these in Australia can boast a more complete organization in all that goes to promote true civilization.
The city proper is separated from its suburbs by a belt of park-lands, and the approaches are lined with thrifty ornamental trees. Great liberality and good judgment presided over the laying out of Adelaide. All the streets are broad and regular, running north and south, east and west. There are no mysterious labyrinths, dark lanes, or blind alleys in the city; the avenues are all uniform in width. It is believed that the interior of the continent, which is largely embraced within this province, was at a comparatively recent period covered by a great inland sea. Here are still found mammoth bones of animals, now extinct, which have become an object of careful study to scientists. Africa's interior is scarcely less explored than is Central Australia. There are thousands of square miles upon which the foot of a white man has never trod. Tartary has its steppes, America its prairies, Egypt its deserts, and Australia its "scrub." The plains, so called, are covered by a low-growing bush, compact and almost impenetrable in places, composed of a dwarf eucalyptus. The appearance of a large reach of this "scrub" is desolate indeed, the underlying soil being a sort of yellow sand which one would surely think could produce nothing else; yet, wherever this land has been cleared and properly irrigated it has proved to be remarkably fertile.
All of these colonial cities have botanical gardens, in the cultivation and arrangement of which much skill and scientific knowledge is displayed. In that of Adelaide we see the Australian bottle-tree, which is a native of this country only. It receives its name from its resemblance in shape to a junk-bottle. This tree has the property of storing water in its hollow trunk, – a well-known fact, which has often proved a providential supply for thirsty travellers in a country so liable to severe drought. Here, also, we see the correa, with its stiff stem and prickly leaves, bearing a curious string of delicate, pendulous flowers, red, orange, and white, not unlike the fuchsia in form. The South Sea myrtle is especially attractive, appearing when in flower with round clustering bunches of bloom, spangled with white stars. The styphelia, a heath-like plant, surprises us with its green flowers. We are shown a specimen of the sandrach-tree, brought from Africa, which is almost imperishable, and from which the Mohammedans invariably make the ceilings of their mosques. The Indian cotton-tree looms up beside the South American aloe – this last, with its thick, bayonet-like leaves, is ornamented in wavy lines like the surface of a Toledo blade. The grouping of these exotics, natives of regions so far apart on the earth's surface, yet quite domesticated here, forms an incongruous though pleasing picture.
West Australia, of which Perth is the capital, is eight hundred miles in width and thirteen hundred long from north to south, actually covering about one-third of the continent. It embraces all that portion lying to the westward of the one hundred and twenty-ninth meridian of east longitude, and has an area of about a million square miles. It has few towns and is very sparsely settled, Perth having scarcely eleven thousand inhabitants, and the whole province a population of not over forty-two thousand. Pearl oysters abound upon its coast and form the principal export, being most freely gathered near Torres's Strait, which separates Australia from New Guinea. The latter is the largest island in the world, being three hundred and sixty miles in width by thirteen hundred in length. Its natives are considered the most barbarous of any savages of the nineteenth century.
From Adelaide to Melbourne is about six hundred miles, a distance accomplished by railway. The first sight of Melbourne will surprise the stranger, though he may be fairly well-informed about this capital of Victoria. No one anticipates beholding so grand a capital in this far-away region of the Pacific. Where there was only a swamp and uncleared woods a few years ago, there has risen a city containing to-day a population of four hundred and twenty thousand, embracing the immediate suburbs. This capital is unsurpassed by any of the British colonies in the elegancies and luxuries of modern civilization, such as broad avenues, palatial dwellings, churches, colossal warehouses, banks, theatres, public buildings, and pleasure grounds. It is pleasant to record the fact that one-fifth of the revenue raised by taxation is expended for educational purposes. Of few cities in the new or the old world can this be truthfully said. Universities, libraries, public art-galleries, and museums do not lack for the liberal and fostering care of the government. No city, if we except Chicago and San Francisco, ever attained to such size and importance in so short a period as has Melbourne.
The river Yarra-Yarra runs through the town, and is navigable for large vessels to the main wharves, where it is crossed by a broad and substantial bridge. Above the bridge the river is handsomely ornamented with trees upon its borders; here the great boat-races take place, one of the most popular of all local athletic amusements, and Melbourne is famous for out-door sports of every form, especially ball-playing.
The activity of the streets is remarkable. English cabs rattle about or stand in long rows awaiting patrons; four-wheeled vehicles of an awkward style, also for hire, abound; messenger-boys with yellow leather pouches strapped over their shoulders hurry hither and thither; high-hung omnibuses with three horses abreast, like those of Paris and Naples, dash rapidly along, well filled with passengers; men gallop through the crowd on horseback, carrying big baskets of provisions on their arms; dog-carts, driven by smart young fellows with a servant behind them in gaudy livery, cut in and out among the vehicles; powerful draught-horses stamp along the way, drawing heavily-laden drays; milk-carts with big letters on their canvas sides make themselves conspicuous, and so do the bakers' carts; while light and neat American wagonettes glide rapidly along among less attractive vehicles. Now and then a Chinaman passes, with his peculiar shambling gait, with a pole across his shoulders balancing his baskets of "truck"; women with oranges and bananas for a penny apiece meet one at every corner, and still the sidewalks are so broad, and the streets so wide, that no one seems to be in the least incommoded. The fruit stores present a remarkable array of tempting fruits, among which are the mandarin and seedless oranges, apricots, green figs, grapes, passion-fruit, pineapples, bananas, and many others, all in fine condition. With the exception of the cities of California, nowhere else can fruit of such choice varieties and so cheap be found as at Melbourne.
Victoria is one of the youngest of the colonies, and was, until the discovery of gold fields within her borders, – that is, in 1851, – a portion of New South Wales; but to-day it is the metropolis of Australia. It has not the many natural beauties of Sydney, but it has numerous compensating advantages, and is the real centre of colonial enterprise upon the continent. The admirable system of street-cars in Melbourne is worthy of all praise, use being made of the underground cable and stationary engine as a motor, a mode which is cheap, cleanly, and popular. Collins Street is the fashionable boulevard of the city, though Burke Street nearly rivals it in gay promenaders and elegant shops. But in broad contrast to these bright and cheerful centres, there are in the northeastern section of the town dirty alleys and by-ways that one would think must prove hot-beds of disease and pestilence, especially as Melbourne suffers from want of a good and thorough system of domestic drainage.
The public library of the city is a large and impressive building, standing by itself, a hundred feet back from the street, on rising ground, and would be creditable to any European or American city. It already
