sequence of the necessity of supplying men with rations that no recognised increase is created. When children come, and education is needed, expenses of course will grow ;-but at first the thing is so easy that the young squatter simply goes out in his buggy and brings home the daughter of some other squatter, -after a little ceremony performed in the nearest church.

As a consequence of this, life in the bush is decent and moral. The bulk of the labour is performed by a nomad tribe, who wander in quest of their work, and are hired only for a time. This is of course the case in regard to washing sheep and shearing them. It is equally so when fences are to be made, or ground to be cleared, or trees to be "rung." The ringing of trees consists of cutting the bark through all round, so that the tree cease to suck up the strength of the earth for its nutrition, and shall die. For all these operations temporary work is of course required, and the squatter seldom knows whether the men he employs be married or single. They come and go, and are known by queer nicknames or are known by no names at all. They probably have their wives elsewhere, and return to them for a season. They are rough to look at, dirty in appearance, shaggy, with long hair, men who, when they are in the bush, live in huts, and hardly know what a bed is. But they work hard, and are

both honest and civil. Theft among them is almost unknown. Men are constantly hired without any character but that which they give themselves; and the squatters find from experience that the men are able to do that which they declare themselves capable of performing. There will be exceptions, but such is the rule. Their one great fault is drunkenness, and yet they are sober to a marvel. As I have said before,

they will work for months without touching spirits,but their very abstinence creates a craving desire which, when it is satisfied, will satisfy itself with nothing short of brutal excess. Among the masters of these men, among squatters with their superintendents and overseers,-drinking is not a common fault. I have seen a squatter drunk. I have seen a squatter very drunk. But he was a jovial exception.

Squatters, I think, do not as a rule go very frequently to church. Churches are not near to them, and as they are always either driving in buggies or riding on horseback in pursuance of their ordinary occupations, on Sundays they are not ready to add perhaps thirty miles, perhaps forty, to their week's work in quest of a sermon. I have spoken of stations which possessed churches of their own. When that is the case, the squatter is generally the parson for three Sundays, being relieved by a real, but itinerant, clergyman on the fourth. I am, however, bound to acknowledge that Sabbath-day observances are laxly kept in the bush.

The resident squatter is generally a young man,— one at least not past the prime of life. For this state of things there are sundry causes. The squatter who succeeds in life, as he grows old does not cease to be a squatter. He sticks to his wool as closely as the lawyer does to his wig, or the banker to his ledger. He knows well every shilling that is spent and made. But he becomes an absentee squatter, having a son, or a junior partner, or perhaps a manager, to manage the run and to send him the accounts. The money comes into his hand readily, as the produce of a sheepstation is never sold on the spot. London is almost always the rich squatter's market. Then again the work to be done is hardly fitted for an old man. All

that an old man can do, he can do away from the station. He has become tired of buggies and bucking horses, perhaps tired of tea and mutton; and he makes himself comfortable in a town.

And many no doubt are ruined before they grow to be old; for, to tell the truth of it, the growing of wool is at the best a precarious trade. Thousands have made their fortunes at it, but thousands also with small capitals have gone to the wall in their struggles, and have been no more heard of among the stations. What becomes of them I cannot say. Who knows the fate of the ruined man? The business is always on a large scale, and being large and also precarious cannot but be dangerous. With wool ranging from 1s. to 2s. a pound, a squatter with 20,000 sheep, and a small capital, may be made by high prices, or marred by low prices, in one year. The year of favourable circumstances in regard to weather and climate may put him at his case for life,and a year's drought may beggar him. This also tends to weed out the old men, and leave the young men in possession. At fifty the squatter can afford either to live in town or in England, -or else he can no longer afford to live on his station.

CHAPTER XXI.

SCENERY IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

I HAVE said in the preceding chapter that the scenery of the bush is monotonous. It is the complaint that has been made generally of all Australian landscape,— so generally as to have reached England, and to constitute one of the few facts that are supposed to be known about the country. The "everlasting gumtree" has become proverbial. Consequently no one visits Australia to see its scenery, and comparatively few of those who go there in pursuit of business, or to see men and women, make a search after the beauties of nature a part of their programme. The same feeling prevails with permanent settlers and with natives. It is taken for granted that Australia is ugly, and that the touring in quest of the picturesque, which forms so great a part of the delight of an Englishman's holiday, would be altogether time wasted and money misapplied if attempted at the Antipodes. Nevertheless, there is grand scenery in, I believe, all the Australian colonies. It is certainly to be found in Queensland and Victoria. Tasmania is one of the prettiest countries I ever visited. And in New South Wales I came across wonders almost as magnificent and charms as lovely as any that I have seen in Europe. As yet the localities are unknown, as yet the means of communication are unfrequent and uncertain, as yet popular

taste has not settled herself in the direction of scenery, directing people to go here or to go there, and by her potency providing the means of encouraging them, feeding them, and amusing them. But the time will come in which Australian men and women will find that they need not go to Europe to delight themselves with mountains and rivers.

Of the extreme beauty of Sydney Harbour I have already spoken, and will only say of it further that its extent is so great as to require days for its examination. It is not a sheet of water which can be seen from one spot, and then be ticked off from the list of sights as a thing completed, and numbered among the lions which have been killed. That lion will demand four or five days before it can be killed to satisfaction, and will then bear to be rekilled by those who really take delight in natural loveliness.

The Australian Alps, whence springs the river Murray, or Hume,-for the upper part of this river was called the Hume in the early days after the explorer of that name,-stand on the south-eastern corner of New South Wales, forming a part of the great range which divides the narrow eastern strip of the continent from the vast bulk of the interior. Of the beauty of these mountains I can only speak by hearsay, having seen no more than their snowy tops at the distance of forty miles. Mount Kosciusko stands just on the borders of New South Wales and Victoria, and is 7,300 feet high. It is the monarch of Australian mountains as Mount Blanc is of those of Europe. From what was told to me, I was very anxious to visit the district, and made plans with that purpose. But I found that Australia was too big and my time too limited to enable me to see everything; and as the life of the men and women around me was