CHAPTER XXIX

Religion—Blacks in the service of the white men—Fickle minds—Settlers and natives on the borders of civilization—Morality—A life and death struggle—The cruelty of the whites—Future prospects of the Australian natives.

A native who had been brought up by the white men was visiting the tribes near Peak Downs, where I stopped for a time. He was able to read and write, and on Sundays he sometimes sent word to the station and asked to borrow a Prayer-book, from which he would read passages aloud to the other blacks in the tribe, who looked with wonderment upon his superiority over them. He also frequently read chapters from the Bible to them, but apparently he did not himself understand much of what he read. Once, when an old woman of the tribe died, he asked to borrow the Prayer-book, in order “to read” over the dead as he had seen the whites do. Finally a Prayer-book was presented to him. He read its title, _Book of Common Prayer_, whereupon he handed it back, saying he did not want anything that was “common.”

It is a well-known fact that the Australian natives are almost wholly devoid of religious susceptibilities, and that missionaries seldom succeed in imparting to them more than the outward appearance of Christianity. Upon the whole, there are but few missionaries in Australia, and the natives come but little in contact with Christianity. Missionary efforts have been made, especially in the southern part of the continent, but with poor success. The lack of the receptive faculty on the part of the blacks and the ill-will of a portion of the white population are great hindrances in the way of missionary work; rough colonists will not abandon the practice of prostitution, from which the blacks derive some pecuniary advantage. The fact that the missionaries see but little fruit from their labours does not therefore allow us to draw the conclusion that the Australian race is quite unsusceptible to religious influence.

In my opinion, an Australian native cannot be christianised unless he is brought up outside his own tribe from infancy. In such circumstances he has been found to be capable of considerable mental development. Many of the natives have learned reading, writing, arithmetic, singing, etc. It is even claimed that they acquire these accomplishments more rapidly than white children, but that they also more quickly forget them again. They are also able to play cards, even “euchre,” a game requiring considerable thought. A squatter in the far west informed me that when he forgot what day in the week it was he only needed to ask his black boy, who never failed to know.

The highest degree of civilisation attainable by the blacks is skill in the work to be done at a station. Women are usually employed in the house, and at each station two or three find work. They make good waiters, but poor cooks. As stock-men and shepherds the blacks are excellent, in this work sometimes even surpassing the whites. They are superb riders, and have a wonderful talent for mastering an unruly horse. On the other hand, they are unable to break a horse properly, and as a rule have very heavy hands.

Among the sheep and cattle the blacks are wellnigh indispensable at every station. They know every animal, and give it much better care than it can get from a white man. A black boy whom I knew was able to distinguish the footprints of the various horses belonging to the station. Some of them have great skill in making whips and bridles, in carving whip handles, and in doing other handiwork.

These civilised blacks soon try to acquire the white man’s manners; they like to wear clothes, and they like to have their clothes fit nicely. Some even shave and wash themselves, use towels, and are perfect bush dandies. They soon acquire a very high opinion of themselves, of their ability, and of their importance. They look upon themselves not only as equally good, but as better than the white men. No man on earth is more proud than a black man on horseback, with good clothes on, his clay pipe lit, and his pocket full of tobacco and matches.

This “civilisation,” which is quickly assumed through intercourse with the white man, does not, however, strike deep root, and the good nature which often accompanies their brutal qualities rarely wholly overcomes the latter. However comfortable they may be with the white man, they still long to get back to their forests. As a rule they must have an annual vacation, when they visit their tribe and take part in the hunting and in other amusements. There is no use in refusing this, for then they would become sulky and unwilling to work. Their love of change makes them constantly give up one situation for another, though they may have no reason to be dissatisfied with the one they abandon. In some few cases a black man will become very much devoted to his master, and will occasionally serve the same one a long time if he only gets his annual vacation. I may mention that a black boy who had been with his master for many years nursed him during a severe illness, nay, even prevented him from committing suicide in a moment of desperation.

A black man twenty-three years old, who from childhood had been educated at a station in Victoria, where he had lived nearly all his life and had been treated almost as a member of the family, one day suddenly disappeared. He was found in the camp of the blacks as naked as he was born, but later on he returned to the station, where he resumed his former work. Sometimes this kind of civilised native becomes so fond of savage life that he never returns to the stations.

It frequently happens that a black-fellow makes a journey abroad when the squatter goes to visit his native country. It would be reasonable to suppose that the great cities of the old world would make some, if not a very deep, impression, on this child of nature, but such is not the case. The Australian native is not surprised, because he lacks the faculty of appreciating. A locomotive flying past him for the first time does not astonish him very much. When, after a long journey, he returns to his tribe he sees the difference, but he has no words with which to explain himself, although his fellows get the general impression that their comrade has had wonderful experiences. He is naturally very proud of his achievements, and wears an air of superiority over both white and black men. A colonist who was trying to give a black man a grand impression of Sydney, received the startling answer: “I like London better.”

Though the language used by the colonists in conversation with the blacks, which the latter gradually learn, is a disconnected jargon, still some of the natives learn to speak English very well. These more talented blacks, mostly from Victoria and New South Wales, become literally angry when addressed in the common jabber-jabber English. A white man who was out hunting emus asked a black of the above kind: _You been see ’im tshukki-tshukki big fellow?_ The latter indignantly replied: “I suppose you mean an emu.”

Though the Australian native is thus able to acquire some of the fruits of civilisation, it still remains a characteristic fact that he never gets so far as to occupy an independent position. As a subordinate he may serve to the complete satisfaction of his master, but he never saves anything, and does not comprehend the value of money. He never learns enough to become a tradesman, and all that he gets he at once spends. In his natural condition he has a decided distaste for agriculture, and this aversion clings to him when he becomes civilised. Cattle-raising is an easy way of making money, but not even this can teach him to make money on his own account.

“A living sheep is an impossibility in the camp of the blacks,” most truly writes Mr. Finch-Hatton, and the gold of Australia is nothing but a common stone to him, even when he sees the greedy digger getting rich by seeking the precious metal. A strong tendency to communism hinders social development among the tribes. Natives employed on a farm invariably share their earnings with their relatives and friends, who live in their camp near the station. When a black man has regular employment at a station he frequently gets five shillings a week besides board and tobacco, but all this he divides with his comrades in the camp. The latter do not care to hunt, but live on what he or their women earn from the squatter. No sooner has one of them saved a pound than he and his friends go to town and buy brandy and opium with the money.

As a rule the relation between the whites and the blacks is not at first a friendly one. It has occasionally happened that the natives have received the whites kindly the first time they met them; they have even given assistance to people who have been shipwrecked, but in most instances a war soon breaks out between the two races. Sheep and cattle begin to feed on the grounds that have belonged to the blacks, and the latter are prohibited from going where they please; because the herds are disturbed by the black men’s hunting, nay even by the smell of the savages. As a matter of course, the natives therefore try to resist the strangers who interfere with their inherited rights.

The rough settler, who never sees a woman of his own race, soon begins to associate with the black women. A friendly relation between the two races is made impossible; the white men shoot the black men, and the black men kill the white men when they can, and spear their sheep and cattle.

Both parties, however, gradually learn to take advantage of each other. The colonist avails himself of the cheap labour furnished by the blacks, and the natives acquire a taste for what the white man has to offer, though it is of course mainly limited to tobacco, food, and clothes. Of this change of condition the colonist reaps the whole advantage, for the invariable result to the black man is both mental and physical degradation and retrogression. Unfortunately the first white men with whom the blacks on the frontiers of civilisation come in contact are frequently rough and brutal, and hence we cannot expect any marked improvement on the part of the natives from their new acquaintances. Their keen sense of observation enables them to discover quickly the bad qualities in the white man’s character, and these they are not slow to imitate; but they have no eye for the good qualities. There is not much to be said of the morals of the blacks, for I am sorry to say they have none. Still, their moral condition has a somewhat better aspect before they come in contact with the white man. It cannot be denied that the young black women originally had a certain amount of modesty. In some parts of the country they assume the position of a Venus of Milo, or they hide behind the older women to take a peep at the white man, whom they see for the first time. It has been observed that the savages who wear an apron are more modest than those who are naked. I have also heard that the women in some tribes take their baths by themselves. It should also be remarked that the natives never represent obscene ideas in their rude drawings, and though it cannot be denied that the husband, in return for certain advantages, will part with his wife, yet he jealously protects her as his most valuable and dearest possession. On the other hand, as soon as the white man comes, immorality knows no bounds, and the black race hasten on to the inevitable ruin awaiting them. Sometimes the most brutal settlers even make use of the revolver to compel the natives to surrender their women; sometimes they actually kill the black man if he makes resistance. At length threats become unnecessary, for the blacks do not need to remain long under the influence of “civilisation” before they offer their wares for a little tobacco, or when the “civilisation” has struck deeper roots, for a shilling. The murder of infants increases, syphilitic diseases become common, and the women having become prostitutes, cease to bear children.

The settlers also reduce the numbers of the natives in a more direct way, and the latter have often been slaughtered in the most unmerciful manner. At times there may possibly be some excuse for this. The white man’s friendship may be rewarded with ingratitude. The blacks frequently punish the innocent for the guilty, and they spare no white man. I know of instances where the blacks have persisted in killing cattle, in spite of the fact that the owner has been extravagant enough in his friendship to give them cattle for slaughter. In such circumstances the blacks do not care if some of their comrades are shot; but at last their ranks become so reduced that they have to yield. They may dog a white man secretly for days, with no less energy than they exhibit in pursuing their game for food, and on the first favourable opportunity take his life. In North Australia no traveller is safe, and many a lonely wanderer who has disappeared in these remote regions has been slain by the spear of the black man. They rarely attack a man on horseback.[22] Still, they watch him and lie in ambush for him, in case he should dismount to look for water to drink, or to rest for the night. In some instances the blacks have attacked a station and killed all the inhabitants. Thus it is necessary for the white man to defend himself, but there is no doubt that in this respect he has gone further than necessity demanded. The settling of Australia is stained with more than one shocking story of this sort. There are instances where the young men of the station have employed the Sunday in hunting the blacks, not only for some definite purpose, but also for the sake of the sport; the blacks have even been killed with poison. A squatter at Long Lagoon, in the interior of Queensland, achieved notoriety by laying strychnine in the way of the blacks, and thus taking the life of a large number of them in a single day.

Footnote 22:

A white man on foot is always regarded as a “little” white man.

Similar acts of brutality occur even at the present time. A farmer whom I met at Lower Herbert boasted that he had cremated some blacks whom he had shot. He looked upon this as a most excellent precautionary measure, for it made proof against him impossible. The life of a native has but little value, particularly in the northern part of Australia, and once or twice colonists offered to shoot blacks for me so that I might get their skulls. On the borders of civilisation men would think as little of shooting a black man as a dog. The law imposes death by hanging as the penalty for murdering a black man, but people live so far apart in these uncivilised regions that a white man may in fact do what he pleases with the blacks.

In Northern Queensland I often heard this remark: “The only treatment proper for the blacks is to shoot them all.” A squatter in that part of the country acted on this principle. He found it severe, but necessary. He shot all the men he discovered on his run, because they were cattle killers; the women, because they gave birth to cattle killers; and the children, because they would in time become cattle killers. “They are unwilling to work,” I have heard colonists say, “and hence they are not fit to live.”

The result of this is that in the frontier districts there is still being waged a war of extermination between the two races. Any savage discovered by the white men runs the risk of being shot. Poison was laid in the way of the blacks once while I was in Queensland. I also take the liberty of reporting the following shocking event, though without giving the names of any of the parties concerned.

A cedar-cutter in Northern Queensland had one day left one of his white workmen in charge of the camp, while he and his other labourers went to the woods to work. In districts where the blacks are dangerous it is always necessary to leave a man on guard in the camp. In the course of the day two blacks came to the guard, and as the latter had no ill-will to the natives, he treated them in a friendly manner and gave them tobacco. When the master returned in the evening he became very angry on account of what had happened, and the next day he set a Kanaka to watch the camp. The natives of course thought the white man was friendly, as he had given them tobacco, and so they did not hesitate to visit the camp again the next day; but they soon found out their mistake. One of the blacks who tried to make his escape was wounded in the leg, while the other one was captured and tied to a tree. This done, the wounded man was seized and killed with a butcher’s knife. When the Kanaka came back to the camp the master had returned, and the latter at once ordered, in cold blood, that the prisoner who was tied to the tree should also be killed. They did not even waste a bullet on the poor fellow, who was pierced with a knife.

That inhuman institution, the native police, has also been an important factor in the destruction of the natives. They have not only slain a large number of this unhappy people, but also contributed largely to their demoralisation.

In the courts the blacks are defenceless, for their testimony is not accepted. The jury is not likely to declare a white man guilty of murdering a black man. On the other hand, if a white man happens to be killed by the blacks, a cry is heard throughout the whole colony.

There are, however, persons who look upon the blacks as human beings with a right to live in the land which is in fact their own. “Were I a black man, I would kill all the whites,” an Australian gentleman once said to me. One of these protectors of the blacks writes to me—

“If I thought that anything I might say on the treatment of the aborigines would in any way tend to ameliorate their present wretched condition, I would not for a moment grudge my lost health, and would plead their cause to my last breath. But alas! it were vain to hope for any improvement in their condition; for it is an immutable law of nature that the strong will prey upon the weak. I always look upon the condition of the lower order of ‘whites’ as a fearful satire on Christianity. The English nation is continually casting stones at other nations for the treatment of conquered races, but nothing could be more barbarous than their own treatment of the aborigines of Australia.”

It must be admitted that the colonists in several places have tried to protect the blacks by giving them reservations and means of existence. In Victoria there are six stations, where the natives raise crops and cattle, and receive instruction.

All this, however, is of no avail. It only gives the doomed race a short respite. It is supposed that there were 9000 blacks in Victoria when the colony was founded. There now remain scarcely 800, and many of these are _half-castes_, who are but little superior to the pure blacks in intelligence, while they have an even less favourable appearance.

“When civilised nations come into contact with barbarians, the struggle is but short, excepting where a dangerous climate helps the native race,” says Darwin, and history corroborates his statement. In 1872 the last Tasmanian died. His ancestors succumbed, not only because they were weaker than the invading race, but also because they were abused by the invaders. The same fate as that which overtook their brothers in Tasmania is in store for the natives of Australia. They have proved themselves almost incapable of receiving either culture or Christianity, and they have not the power to resist the onward march of civilisation. They are therefore without a future, without a home, without a hope,—a doomed race. The two races cannot exist together. If the Australian attacks the whites or their herds, he is shot; if he tries to secure the friendship of the white men, his ruin is no less certain. He is unwilling to abandon his habits of life, and for this reason the settlement of the country robs him of his means of existence, while European culture at the same time causes his moral and physical degradation.

The philanthropist is filled with sadness when he sees the original inhabitants of this strange land succumbing according to the inexorable law of degeneration. Invading civilisation has not brought development and progress to the Australian native; after a few generations his race will have disappeared from the face of the earth.

APPENDIX

I AN OUTLINE OF AUSTRALIAN HISTORY

The history of Australia illustrates in broad outlines how a continent inhabited by a most primitive race of men becomes known to the Europeans, how the latter colonise the country and drive the natives before them, and how the new community is organised and developed. Thus the subject may be divided into three chapters—(1) The condition before the discovery; (2) the story of the discovery; and (3) the story of the colonisation.

THE CONDITION BEFORE THE EUROPEAN DISCOVERY

The degree of culture attained by the Australian aborigines when they first came in contact with the Europeans was not a high one. We find a race living in small tribes, without any social organisation, always moving from one place to another, living in huts hurriedly made of leaves or bark; almost naked; destitute of implements of metal, destitute of perforated stone implements, destitute of bows and arrows; having miserable boats, or none at all; having no other domestic animals than the semi-wild dingo, and having no knowledge of agriculture. The development which preceded this stage of civilisation must be looked for in the very infancy of human culture, where we have but little light to show the way. Nor is any special value to be attached to peculiar customs which this people may have in common with other races similarly situated. Circumcision, tattooing, exogamy, and sorcery are found in every part of the globe, but for none of these have we been able to show a common origin. Nor has the science of philology hitherto been able to connect the prehistoric ages of Australia with the culture of the rest of the world, though efforts have been made to show linguistic resemblances both with the Dekkan races and more recently with the negroes of Africa. The archæological investigations are confined to enormous “middens” or refuse heaps. One science remains, viz. comparative anthropology; but even this is not able to give a satisfactory answer, for the Australian aborigines form a group by themselves without any marked similarity to any other races. A few anthropological correspondences have led to comparisons with the Papuans, who geographically are their nearest neighbours.

There are in like manner faint traces pointing to the north and north-east, when we seek the source of the earliest culture of Australia. A later current from north-east to south-west has been suggested, but cannot be made to serve as the basis of any reliable hypothesis. It has been shown that weapons (the bow), and boats, and houses, and physical development reveal progress as the York peninsula is approached, and the influence of Malays and Papuans can be definitely pointed out. But all this bears the stamp of modern times, and must be the result of communications in a very recent period. The one thing certain is that the Australian race must have originated ages ago.

Investigation, which shows how completely Australia has been cut off from external influence, gives the best answer to the question why the development of the blacks has made so little progress, for the development of the world is found to be dependent on the intercourse between different races, on the conflicts between them, and on the struggle for existence thus caused.

The very nature of the country has helped to keep the people from making progress. In the first place there are but few inlets of the sea, and in the next place there are two other circumstances which only need to be pointed out to be appreciated. There are no ruminating animals, and grain is very rare. The transition from the most primitive life to that of the herdsman was therefore impossible, and this common door to a higher culture was closed. On the other hand, there was but little inducement to become agricultural, though the wild rice found in the northern part of South Australia has been used as food. Besides the climatic conditions, the long droughts—sometimes lasting for years in the interior of the country—were a decided obstacle to agriculture, even if there had been grain that could bear them better than rice. Finally, it should be added that the natural products are usually so abundant that it is comparatively easy to subsist without labour.

The fact is, at all events, that the great discovery on which all higher civilisation is based, viz. agriculture, had not been made in Australia at the time when it was colonised by Europeans.

There could be no doubt about the result when the aborigines and the Europeans met. The difference was so great that assimilation was impossible. The only vocations open to the aborigines in the new Australian community were those of the herdsman and policeman. The latter of these was of no advantage to the natives. The first English colonists were mainly banished criminals, reckless people a fact that gave the conflict between the two races the character of a war of extermination from the very outset, and in this warfare the native police has contributed much toward the destruction of the aborigines.

It is difficult to estimate the number of aborigines in Australia at the time when the European colonisation began. Natives, or traces of them, were met everywhere. Sturt relates that he met about 4000 in the course of a few days. We probably are not wide of the mark when we assume that fifty years ago there were about 200,000 natives in Australia; their number is now estimated at about 60,000.

The world is familiar with the systematic cruelty with which the Tasmanians were exterminated. In 1872 occurred the death of the last representative of a people which numbered about 5000 souls at the time of the founding of the colony in 1803. Many were killed in wars, many were even hunted out of the woods and destroyed. A large number of them were transported to the islands in Bass Strait, where death and ruin soon overtook them. The regular hunting and shooting of the natives in the early days of Queensland suggests the question, whether the coming of the new settlers deserved the name of the “advent of civilisation.”

HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY

Australia was the last continent discovered by the European, a fact easily explained by its situation. In the age of the great discoveries, navigators were seeking a way to India, and whether they chose to go by the way of the Cape of Good Hope or by the Straits of Magellan, in either case the route was far to the north of Australia. The navigators also seem to have kept as far to the north as possible. Still, a very long time cannot have passed ere sailors came in sight of the Australian coast. Strange to say, it is not known with certainty who was the first discoverer of this great continent. Some old maps seem to show that the Portuguese were aware of the existence of a large country south of Java before the year 1545, viz. “Great Java.” On these maps are found coral reefs, rivers, promontories, etc., and a number of names. It is, however, difficult to determine how far these maps may be based on the old purely theoretical assumption that there was a large _terra australis incognita_, to give equilibrium to the earth and balance the northern hemisphere.

Ere long the Spanish, the chief rivals of the Portuguese, also presented their claims. By the decision of Pope Alexander II, who acted as arbitrator, the Spanish were permitted to develop their sway only westward of Europe, while all to the east was left to the Portuguese. The conflict which then arose in regard to the Moluccas may explain why both parties were silent in regard to the great country they may have discovered south of the boundary.

At all events, the first Australian discoveries of which we have perfectly reliable accounts were not made before the beginning of the seventeenth century. We first come across the Dutch, who during their war of independence attempted to conquer the rich colonies of their enemies—the Spanish and the Portuguese. In connection with this we obtain the following reliable dates: in 1601 the Portuguese De Eridia landed on the north-west coast from the west; in 1606 the Spaniard Torres passed from the east through the straits named after him; and subsequently a Dutch ship called _Duyfhen_ sailed along the coast toward Cape York. From this time the Dutch carry on nearly all the explorations. It would take us beyond our present limits to present the details of this gradual discovery, from the Dutch headquarters in Java, or on their route to East India, a route which they had to lay south of that of the Portuguese. In 1627 Peter Nuyts entered the great Australian bay from the west. In 1642 Tasman gained the south point of that country, which he called Van Diemen’s Land. It is not easy now to decide whether his reasons for regarding the latter as the southern point of a large continent were based on old theories or on more recent observations.

The English, the nation which was destined to control the development of Australia, did not make their appearance before 1688, when the freebooter Dampier explored the west coast. This happened one hundred years before the first colonies—the centenary of which has been recently celebrated—were planted, in 1788.

It was a long time before anybody made any decided effort to take possession of the country, and for this delay there were many reasons. The power of the Spanish was exhausted, and so was that of Portugal, while the victorious Dutch were fully occupied with their new rich provinces. To this must be added that all descriptions of Australia represented the continent as barren and without water to drink, and its natives as poor and savage. Nor did the coasts that had been seen present any very inviting aspect. There are but few harbours on the west and south coasts, and on the north-east side are dangerous coral reefs. The wrong side of Australia had been seen, and it was absurd to prefer this country to the Spice Island or America.

It is interesting to note that it was a scientific expedition which first led to the colonisation of the country. In 1768 Captain Cook carried an astronomer and one or two other scientists to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus, and to make some other researches on their home voyage. This was the beginning of the present phase of scientific expeditions. In 1770 he touched Australia at Botany Bay, and made a chart of the coast to the north as far as Torres Straits, the importance of which he was the first to point out.

At this time England was greatly puzzled as to what it should do with all such criminals as it had heretofore sent to America. The declaration of independence on the part of the United States had put an end to the transportation of criminals to that country, and the favourable report made by Cook in regard to Botany Bay led Sydney to make up his mind to try Australia. The first transportation was made in 1788, but the colony was soon moved to the magnificent harbour of Port Jackson, where the city of Sydney was gradually built up.

The opening up of the continent was continued with this solitary colony as the base of exploration. Flinders and Bass commenced their expeditions in the year 1795 in a small open boat to both sides of the coast. In 1797 Bass called attention to the strait between Tasmania and the continent, and the next year he circumnavigated the island with Flinders. At the expense of the Government Flinders made charts of a large part of the coast of Australia, and this coast survey was continued from time to time almost to the present day.

During the most recent years attention has been chiefly given to the exploration of the interior.

How difficult it must have been to penetrate the Blue Mountains separating Sydney from the plains in the interior is evident from the fact that men like Bass attempted it in vain. It took twenty-five years to advance the first fifty miles, and thus to find a way between the steep rocks to the open country beyond. The first passage was effected in 1813, and from that time the explorations have progressed rapidly. Oxley, Cunningham, Mitchell, Sturt, and others explored the whole country along the rivers toward Victoria. The German naturalist Dr. L. Leichhardt began his explorations along the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1835, and made most valuable reports. In 1847 he undertook his last expedition, a bold attempt to penetrate to the west coast. Not a word was heard of him after April 3, 1848.

From Adelaide, settled about the same time, a series of attempts were begun in 1839 to penetrate the country from the south to the north. Heroic efforts were made in this direction by Eyre, who afterwards suffered untold hardships in travelling 1200 miles along the coast to King George’s Sound. O’Hara Burke and Wills were the first to reach the north coast in 1861, but both perished from hunger on their way back. The following year M‘Donald Stuart, after having made two abortive attempts, succeeded in getting through, and from that time onwards the route was open. In 1872 a telegraph line was laid, amid great difficulties, across the whole continent. It followed Stuart’s route, and this enterprise became the basis of a series of explorations all the way to the west coast, and thus the main features of the geography of Australia have become established. Prominent names in connection with this are Giles, Forrest, Warburton, and Gregory.

Most of these expeditions into the interior have been undertaken amid the greatest privations, such as a constant lack of water and terrible heat, even up to 127° F., so that it has at times been necessary to bury one’s self in the ground in order to endure it. Add to this the almost impassable spinifex-scrubs, the salt lakes, the sand-storms, etc., and we can form some idea of what the explorer had to suffer. The bright sunlight destroyed Sturt’s eyes, and many a life has been lost in the conflict with these similar impediments. But a large territory has been opened to civilisation by these martyrs.

HISTORY OF THE COLONIES

On January 26, 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip landed at Sydney with his first company of prisoners, and in a solemn manner took possession of a whole continent in the name of the inhabitants of a small island on the opposite side of the globe. Had the French expedition under La Perouse come earlier than it did to this place, the whole development of Australia might have taken a different direction. As it was, the ruling power of the British nation got an opportunity of expanding, and a new world was added to the dominion of the Anglo-Saxon race.

The beginning was made by about 1000 deported criminals, about one-fourth part of these being women. Now, one hundred years later, the population of the Australian colonies, leaving New Zealand out of consideration, is nearly 3,000,000. The first means of subsistence had to be produced by agriculture, but as few of the new settlers had any knowledge of this art, there was much suffering in the beginning, and in order to escape death from starvation, the domestic animals which had been brought had to be slaughtered. One hundred years later Australia contains 80,000,000 sheep and almost 8,000,000 head of cattle, and it sends annually to the mother country beef, mutton, wool, tallow, wheat, and metals to the value of about £40,000,000 sterling. A most remarkable progress!

The story of the early days of the colonies is chiefly a history of the deportation of criminals. The first colony received, from 1788 until the importation was stopped in 1839 by the energetic protest of the “free immigrants,” in all 60,000 criminals. The next colony of criminals was Tasmania, or as the island was then called, Van Diemen’s Land (1803). The deportation of criminals to the latter place ceased in 1853, when 68,000 prisoners had been sent there. What the condition was during the early days of these colonies, guarded by rough soldiers, we can judge from the fact that there occurred in 1835 in New South Wales, among 28,000 prisoners, 22,000 disciplinary punishments (3000 floggings) and 100 executions. In Tasmania, with a population of 37,000, about 15,000 were punished in 1834, including one-seventh part of the free citizens arrested for intemperance.

The last colony to which convicts were regularly deported was West Australia, founded in 1829. In 1849 this colony sent a petition to the Government asking for criminals to be sent thither, in order to promote the development of the colony. Under pressure from the other colonies, which finally on their own account resisted by force the landing of such immigrants, West Australia had to abandon this traffic in 1868, having then received about 10,000.

Thus it will be seen that this transportation introduced great numbers of people to Australia, and at the same time the voluntary immigration kept increasing. Two of the present colonies were not started as convict settlements. There was an attempt to send convicts to Melbourne in 1803, but the plan was soon abandoned, and the colony of Port Phillip, as Victoria was then called, was founded in 1834 by free citizens from Tasmania. South Australia was colonised directly by an English company, who received the land for nothing on condition that they should encourage immigration. In 1841 this settlement contained 23,000 inhabitants, chiefly freemen.

The growth of the colonies depended on the development of trade and industries. In the beginning all labour was confined to agriculture, and but little progress was made, till during the first decades of this century MacArthur advocated the raising of sheep with great energy, and after a passage through the Blue Mountains had been found by Macquarie, a new impetus was given to the development of Australia. The manner in which the country became settled may be described as follows—

In the first place, an explorer makes his way into unknown regions. Close on his heels follows the squatter or shepherd, and slowly in his track comes the selector, the permanent agricultural settler. The original huntsman, the shepherd, and the farmer follow each other in rapid succession—it is the history of civilisation in a nutshell.

The economical politics of Australia have long been wrestling with the question of the proper _modus vivendi_ between the squatter and the selector, whose interests are conflicting. Many experiments have been made in the various colonies, but this troublesome question has not yet been solved.

In the midst of the development of sheep-raising and agriculture a third factor, gold, was added, which gave Australia an immense advantage, even though it at the same time interfered with the above-mentioned industries.

* * * * *

The year 1851 marks an epoch in the history of Australia. It was literally the beginning of a golden age for the continent, for in that year the great gold mines of Victoria were discovered.

It had long been believed that gold must be found in Australia; among the deported criminals there were all sorts of reports about finds said to have been made in the Blue Mountains; but the Government paid no attention to these strange rumours and the result was that the matter was not properly investigated.

But in 1851 the greatest excitement was created when the Government purchased from a Californian gold digger, for a large sum of money, some rich gold fields which he had discovered in the Blue Mountains. When the Government by this step had given its public sanction to the question, the colony became wild with excitement. The most extravagant reports concerning the immense wealth of the gold fields were circulated, and were accepted as gospel truth. From all quarters people assembled to the new fountains of wealth, where they expected to find the pure gold in such quantities that it was only necessary to stoop down and fill their pockets with the precious ore. The disappointment when they arrived in the promised land and learned from experience that there was need of months—nay, of years—of hard and persistent labour to attain the wealth they were seeking, was as great as the expectation which had previously been formed. The larger part of the army of adventurers who had flocked together to the gold mines to secure all of a sudden a wealth which they had neither the strength nor the endurance to acquire under ordinary circumstances, returned discouraged to Sydney, after having spent a month in idleness in the gold fields. In their wrath on account of the deception, as they called it, they nearly took the life of the Californian who had discovered the fields.

A number of gold diggers, however, gradually congregated in the Blue Mountains from the various colonies. When the work proved to be very profitable the rush was so great that one of the earlier colonies, the little Victoria, which had recently been founded, was on the point of being entirely deserted. To prevent the colony from perishing altogether, the leading men in Melbourne offered a large reward to any person who succeeded in discovering gold in Victoria. Before long, specimens of gold were found on the Yarra river, a few miles from Melbourne; in the course of a short time the famous gold mines of Ballarat and Bendigo were discovered.

At first gold was found in Ballarat in the usual manner—that is, in the bed of a river; but this was soon exhausted. A thick layer of clay was struck below the sand, and the work was abandoned in order to search for new fields. Fortunately one of the gold diggers, who had made up his mind to stay some time longer, got the idea of working through the clay, and by so doing he reached enormous quantities of gold in the old bed of the river. For centuries the streams had carried gold down from the mountains and deposited it here in “pockets” in the bed of the river. A single “pocket” of this kind would sometimes contain thousands of pounds’ worth of gold. Within a month Ballarat became the richest gold field in the whole world.

The gold fever grew into a perfect rage. Melbourne was almost deserted. People of every class and from every part of the world left their work, their situations, and their homes to seek their fortunes. In Melbourne policemen left their posts of duty, officials threw up their offices, and sailors deserted their ships.

In spite of the fact that everybody rushed to the gold mines, thus preventing a normal development of the country, Australia got full compensation in the new impetus given to immigration. The year after the discovery of gold more than 100,000 immigrants arrived in Victoria. Thus the population was doubled in a single year, and during the following five years it increased fivefold. While in 1830 there were less than 4000 inhabitants, in 1860 their number had increased to 1,300,000. The quantity of gold found was also sufficiently large to explain this increase of population. During the next ten years £100,000,000 were produced in Victoria alone.

As a matter of course, money had but little value in such circumstances. During he first years after the discovery of the gold fields sovereigns passed as freely as copper pennies. A barber would get £1 for cutting a gold digger’s hair; the idea of giving change back was never thought of.

Many characteristic stories are told of this golden age of the fortune-seekers. A gold digger took a holiday, and went into a restaurant where he demanded a breakfast for £10. The hostess looked at him, smiled, and answered that she was not able to furnish so expensive a breakfast at present. Her highest price was five shillings. “Well,” said the customer, “give me the best you have.” The hostess did her best, and served every hot and cold dish she could devise. The gold digger seated himself at the table, looked at the various dishes with the air of an epicure, but at length turned up his nose and declared that there was nothing fit for him to eat. Then he took a large roll of bank-notes out of his pocket, selected a £10 note, laid it between two pieces of bread and butter, ate it, and washed it down with champagne. “That’s what I call a ten-pound breakfast,” he added, and paid his bill and walked out.

Two Irishmen came into an inn to rest while the coachman was changing horses. The Irishmen were gold diggers who had reaped an abundant harvest, and they were now on their way home to the Emerald Isle with their pockets full of gold.

They learned that the innkeeper also was an Irishman, and this fact aroused their patriotism; so they resolved to drink a toast to old Ireland in champagne. Fifty bottles of this choice beverage were demanded for the honour of Ireland. But no sooner had they paid the £50 and opened the first two bottles than the coachman shouts, “All ready!” The Irishmen climb into their places in the coach and proceed on their journey, leaving the host to finish the remaining forty-eight bottles.

The average individual gains were, however, not so large, and the digging for gold was gradually reduced to systematic methods. The work by degrees became a link in that mining industry which embraced copper, coal, and tin. Copper and coal were discovered in Australia long before gold—as was also tin, which in its importance to the colonies may in time equal the others. New discoveries of gold have attracted adventurers to the north of Australia, and opened new avenues for immigration; but the continent is, upon the whole, pastoral and agricultural.

The Chinese have forced their way into all the islands of the Indian Ocean, and this new current of immigration has given the development of Australia, particularly of tropical Queensland, a peculiar character.

Efforts have been made to check in an effective manner this influx of Chinese labourers, who supplant the white workmen. Here, as in America, an “import duty” and similar obstacles have been tried in order to stop the stream, but still the Chinese kept coming. A treaty with China, making immigration therefrom almost impossible, last year failed to be ratified by the Chinese Government. It is still an open question whether there is any way of stopping this influx, or whether the Chinese stream of immigration will continue to form an undercurrent to that from Europe. It does not seem possible that the Chinese will ever become the predominating element.

The Kanakas being better able to endure the heat than the white population, it is probable that here, as in America, a class of Anglo-Saxon plantation-owners dependent on coloured labour may be developed.

The nature of the country has given its industries their peculiar character. The raising of sheep requires immense pastures, and agriculture assumes wide dimensions on the new and fertile soil. The result is that local centres are created with great difficulty in the midst of this industry spread over so large a domain. The points of colonisation first chosen thus obtain a great advantage and monopolise the trade. They become centres of knowledge and of pleasure, and they absorb all that stream of immigrants who are not suited to agriculture and do not acquire land but settle wherever they can earn a bare living. The fact that a population of less than 3,000,000 scattered over an immense territory has two cities, Melbourne and Sydney, of nearly 400,000 inhabitants each, and that one-third of the population of Australia lives in five of the largest cities, is unique and is explained by what has been stated above.

The political separation of the different colonies is intimately connected with the uneven distribution of the population. The independent development of the two chief centres, Melbourne and Sydney, could not fail to break the old New South Wales into two colonies (1851). Tasmania obtained its own seat of government in 1825 in Hobart Town. With Brisbane’s development came Queensland’s separation in 1859 as an independent colony, which doubled its population in the subsequent six years. There is a constantly growing desire for emancipation, and at the present time strenuous efforts are being made to make the north part of Queensland into a separate colony.

At the same time as this work of separation is progressing there are also centralising elements at work, and the latter will no doubt lead to favourable results in the near future. Efforts are being made to unite the various colonies into a confederation. There also prevails a strong common sentiment in regard to the efforts of all other nations to establish colonies in the neighbouring countries (the Germans in New Guinea and the French in New Caledonia), and an arrangement for a common defence of their interests against these rivals has already been begun. National pride is very marked in Australia.

The bond of union between Australia and the mother country has not been loosened in the midst of this development toward independence. On the contrary, the Australians cling to it with increasing tenacity, and with even more enthusiasm than Englishmen themselves. The best proof of this is the fact that Australia sent a special contingent to take part in England’s last war at Suakim. The form of the proposed imperial federation has, however, not yet been worked out.

A similar effort for political emancipation from British control has been going on within the separate colonies. In the first convict settlements of course martial law was administered by their governors, but in the political conflict—carried on chiefly in the mother colony, New South Wales—home rule became fully established. At first the governor chose his own ministers; but in course of time (1824) the ministry became dependent on the general elections, as in England. At length in 1851, the critical year in the annals of Australia, the colonies secured a perfectly independent constitution providing for two legislative houses. In the various colonies members of the upper house were chosen either by the Government or by the wealthy classes of the community. A certain property qualification was also originally necessary for members of the lower house, though this is now merely nominal.

The English system of jurisprudence and of municipal rule prevails everywhere. The schools are free and unsectarian, and attendance is compulsory. The colonies which originally consisted of criminals have developed a remarkable interest in the cause of education. As in the United States, universities and academics are largely the product of private munificence.

Relying on their rapid development and on their large natural resources, the colonies have been induced to incur an enormous public debt, amounting to about £20,000,000, and we must bear in mind that the population is only about 3,000,000. The above debt includes, however, local expenditures, and much of it has been created for building railroads, which were very much needed in this large country. But the Government owns 1,400,000,000 acres of unsold land, and though a part of this is almost worthless, still the revenue which will come in from its sale may justify the incurring of such a debt.

The history of the colonisation reveals a community which still possesses the vigour of youth, and whose culture is wholly European, and these results, wonderful as they are, have been achieved in two generations. If we could visit Australia two generations hence we would probably find a country where not only European flora—grain, grass, etc.—and European fauna—the sheep, horse, cow, rabbit, sparrow, etc.—will have invaded and conquered the large districts which have been cut off from the rest of the world since the tertiary period, but where every trace of the original population will have disappeared. Instead of a stagnation of thousands of years in the first stages of the stone age, we shall have a vigorous development parallel with the culture of Europe and America.

In the whole history of man’s development a more sudden revolution is not known than that which has happened in Australia during this century.

At the centennial festival celebrated last year in Australia it was prophesied that one hundred years hence Australia will be a federal republic with 50,000,000 English-speaking inhabitants, who, sprung from the same race as that which gave birth to the Americans, will have developed into a new but easily recognisable type, resembling but yet differing from their Yankee cousins. The motto of the Australians is “Advance Australia!” They have proved that they have been able to carry out this maxim in the past and they will not fail to do so in the future.

II GEOLOGY

Australia may be compared to a gigantic plate. The interior part is flat, moderately high (300 to 2150 feet), and the elevation increases toward the edges. The raised edge of this plate is in the south-east, where we find the highest summit in Australia, Mount Townsend, in Kosciuszko Range, which is 7059 feet high. The edge of the plate has a very marked character on the east coast, where a continuous though not very high chain of mountains stretches from Victoria through the eastern part of New South Wales and Queensland to the York peninsula, which bounds on the east the great Gulf of Carpentaria. This whole mountain chain is embraced by the Australian geographers (_e.g._ G. Sutherland) in the term “The Great Dividing Range,” the separate parts of which have separate names. In the boundary between Victoria and New South Wales it is called the Australian Alps, and west of Sydney the Blue Mountains.

Round the lower part of the Gulf of Carpentaria and in a part of the south coast of Australia the “plate” has no edge, and low and flat country stretches here from the sea far into the interior. On the other hand an elevation is found in the “bottom of the plate” in Central Australia, but this elevation nowhere reaches 3000 feet.

Australia has no streams to be compared with the great rivers of other countries, a fact due to the scarcity of rain. The largest stream is Murray river, which empties itself into the sea on the south coast. With its tributaries it drains a country as large as the triangle formed by North Cape, Christiania, and St. Petersburg. During the rainy season the lower part of Murray river is navigable.

Australia consists of primitive rock, granite, gneiss, and silurian rock—that is to say, very old formations, and nearly identical with those of the Scandinavian peninsula.

There are many coal-bearing strata in Queensland and in the north-eastern part of New South Wales; thus Australia, in addition to its other mineral wealth, also possesses “black diamonds.” In many places strata from the mesozoic period of the earth’s history have been found.

The shell given below, of which I found a large number lying in sandstone near Minnie Downs 400 miles west from Rockhampton, is a gigantic _Inoceramus_ from the cretaceous period. I gave this fossil to the mineralogical cabinet in Christiania University, and it has been described by the Swedish Professor Bernh. Lundgren, who is an authority in this field of science.

The remains of animal and vegetable life found in the older strata agree, as a whole, with those found in other parts of the globe of the same periods. At some time in the mesozoic age the Australian continent must have been separated and have become a continent by itself. This plainly appears in the tertiary period, during which the greater part of Australia seems to have remained an independent dry country. This was also the case during the quaternary period.

Australia has had no ice period. At least but uncertain traces of glacial actions are to be found.

In the tertiary period we must look for the oldest ancestors of the present fauna, in the quaternary for the immediate progenitors, which resemble the present animals, and many of them are remarkable for their size. There has been a kangaroo one-third larger than the present species, there has also been a gigantic animal related to the kangaroo and living on vegetables, the _Diprotodon_, which was about as large as an elephant. The remains of this animal are so widespread and so numerous as to make it evident that it must have existed wellnigh throughout Australia.

At the time when the country became inhabited by man there still lived one of the great animals of the palæozoic times, namely a bird resembling the ostrich and much larger than the emu. Its bones have been found in the middens of the savages, and the joints show marks of their flint knives.

Among the more recent geological formations is the so-called “desert sandstone,” which is found scattered through a great part of the interior. It contains no sea-shells, and but few remains of plants and of fresh-water shells. There are various opinions in regard to its origin. Some think it was deposited in large lakes, which are supposed to have been very numerous in a remote age. A more probable theory is, however, that the substratum has been disintegrated into sand and stone dust and blown about by the wind.

Australia has no active volcanoes, but extinct ones are numerous. Some of those found in Victoria are believed to have been active in a late prehistoric age.

Among the mineral products of Australia gold is the most important. It had its seat originally in veins of quartz in the oldest rocks. By the disintegration of the rocks during the long geological ages much alluvial gold has been deposited among the sand and the gravel. The running water carries stony substances with it more rapidly than gold, which lags behind on account of its weight. The result is that the deposits increase in quantity as we approach the original seat of the gold, and when circumstances are favourable the gold digger may be handsomely rewarded for his labours.

III FLORA

Scarcely a flora is to be found with so many peculiarities as the Australian. Still this does not imply that the things which appear so remarkable to the traveller are of equal interest to the botanist, though often they are more so. It is often stated as a curiosity that the Australian “cherry-trees” have the stone outside of the berry, and not inside, as with us in Europe. As a matter of fact this is nothing remarkable, the explanation being simply that what we call the fruit is merely an enlarged berry-like stalk, while the fruit proper is an unsavoury nut, hard as stone, growing at the extreme end of this stalk. Hence the tree is called _Exocarpus_ (“outside fruit”). Similar phenomena are found in other parts of the world.[23] The Australian “pear” grows with the large end nearest the stalk; but it is not a pear, just an inedible fruit, hard as wood, of a Proteacea called _Xylomelum pyriforme_.

Footnote 23:

In the West Indies there is a similar fruit, _Anacardium_, growing at the extremity of the enlarged stalk.

This is not uncommon near Port Jackson. Another species of the same genus inhabits Queensland, and two others Western Australia; all bearing similar woody fruits or seed-vessels.

The arboreous and shrubby vegetation of Australia is almost exclusively evergreen, or rather one might say the leaves are persistent, for the beautiful shades of green characterising the forests and fields of the northern hemisphere are wanting, and are replaced by a monotony of olive-green or bluish-green. On the other hand, brilliantly coloured flowers abound, the natural orders _Leguminosæ_, _Myrtaceæ_, and _Proteaceæ_ being especially numerous, diversified, and generally dispersed over the whole country.

Although large areas in the interior have not been botanically explored, the flora of the country is almost as well known as that of Europe, not in its minutest details, but in general character and composition. Robert Brown the eminent English botanist, _facile princeps_ among botanists of his time, was the first real investigator of the exceedingly rich Australian flora. He accompanied Flinders on his voyage of discovery in Australian seas during the first years of the present century, and made very extensive collections of dried plants, which he elaborated after his return home. Noteworthy among subsequent botanists who have turned their attention to the vegetation of that part of the world are Sir Joseph Hooker, Sir Ferdinand von Mueller, and the late Mr. George Bentham. Assisted by the extensive collections and notes accumulated by Mueller, combined with the numerous earlier collections preserved in England, Bentham wrote a descriptive account of all the plants known to inhabit Australia. This work is in English, and it is a monument of industry and learning, consisting of seven octavo volumes with an aggregate of 4000 pages.

Sir Ferdinand von Mueller has since largely supplemented this work, besides publishing a number of highly important, fully illustrated monographs of the more important genera, such as _Eucalyptus_ and _Acacia_. According to Mueller’s latest census of the flora, the number of species of flowering plants and ferns known to inhabit the country at the end of 1888 was 8909, belonging to 1394 genera and 149 natural orders.

These are large numbers, but, what is more remarkable, something like 7700 of these species are endemic, or peculiar to Australia. The endemic element in a flora is nowhere in the world higher, if even so high, in so large an area, as in Western Australia, where eighty-five per cent of the species are peculiar, and of the remaining fifteen per cent few species extend beyond Australia.

Several genera are very numerous in species, notably _Acacia_, of which there are upwards of 300, and _Eucalyptus_, of which there are 150; and _Grevillea_ (_Proteaceæ_) is represented by 150, and _Melaleuca_ (_Myrtaceæ_) by 100 species.

Foremost in utility and most prominent in the scenery all over Australia are the species of _Eucalyptus_, locally named blue gum, green gum, iron-bark, stringy-bark, etc. etc. They vary in stature from dwarf bushes to the tallest tree in the world, one species, _E. amygdalina_ (p. 370), considerably overtopping the “big trees” (_Wellingtonia_) of California. In some parts of Victoria there are groves of this tree averaging upwards of 300 feet in height, and several, as recorded in Mueller’s useful _Eucalyptographia_, have been found to measure more than 400 feet, and the tallest of all 471 feet.

In addition to being the largest and most durable timber of the country, the gum-trees yield a variety of useful products. Most of them exude a valuable gum resin; the bark of others is employed in tanning, and the oil of _Eucalyptus_ is now extracted to the extent of 2000 gallons annually in one factory. Several of them periodically shed their barks in large sheets, after the manner of our planes and birches, but more thoroughly. The leaves, like those of many other Australian trees, are vertical instead of horizontal, so that they afford comparatively little shade. Unlike our forest trees, too, they have more or less conspicuous flowers—some of the western species especially large and highly coloured flowers, followed by woody seed-vessels varying in different species from less than a quarter of an inch to three inches in diameter, and containing numerous very small seeds.

The genus _Eucalyptus_ belongs to a tribe of the _Myrtaceæ_ characterised by having a dry instead of a fleshy fruit. To the same group belongs the large genus _Melaleuca_, which is likewise almost peculiar to Australia and spread all over it. Conspicuous among the species of _Melaleuca_ is _M. Leucadendron_, which inhabits all except the south-eastern region. It is called tea-tree, paper-bark tree, and milkwood in the different colonies. The wood of this tree is very beautiful and durable, and valuable for shipbuilding and other purposes; and the papery bark is said to be impervious to water and remains sound after the wood has decayed. The accompanying woodcut (p. 373) will give an idea of the aspect of the tree.

Next to the _Eucalypti_, the _Proteaceæ_ and _Acaciæ_ are almost everywhere prominent features in the landscape. The numerous species of _Banksia_, honeysuckles of the colonists, are generally dispersed, and easily recognised by their large dense heads of showy flowers, succeeded by large, gaping, woody seed-vessels.

With few exceptions, the species of _Acacia_ differ from those of other parts of the world (except two or three in the Mascarene and Sandwich Islands) in the feathery pinnate leaves being reduced to vertically flattened, rounded, and variously shaped organs corresponding to the leaf-stalk, and termed phyllodes. Occasionally, and especially in young seedling-plants, the ordinary pinnate blade is born at the end of the phyllode, thus giving a clue to its true nature.

True cone-bearing trees are rare in Australia, but the allied slender-branched weeping species of _Frenela_ (_Callitris_) and the very similar _Casuarineæ_ (the she-oak, river oak, forest oak, etc.) are almost inseparable from Australian scenery. In Queensland and northern New South Wales there are, however, two remarkable true cone-bearing trees: namely, the bunya-bunya (_Araucaria Bidwillii_) and the Moreton Bay pine (_A. Cunninghamii_). There are other species of _Araucaria_ in Norfolk Island, New Caledonia, and South America. The Australian species both afford a valuable timber, but it is not permitted to fell the bunya-bunya on the Crown lands, owing to its seeds being a valuable article of food to the aborigines.

Even so slight a sketch as this of the vegetation of Australia would be singularly imperfect without some reference to the highly peculiar grass-trees (_Xanthorrhœa_), which form so striking a feature in the scenery, especially in West Australia. The larger species have stout trunks surmounted by a tuft of long narrow recurved leaves, from the centre of which rise the tall, slender, shaft-like inflorescences.

Few persons knowing anything of botany have not heard of the gigantic African baobab; yet fewer probably have heard of the Australian baobab, found on the sandy plains and stony ridges from the Glenelg river to Arnhem’s Land. It is equally remarkable for the great size of its trunk, which is sometimes as much as eighty feet in circumference.

Tree-ferns are abundant and exceedingly fine in some parts of the eastern side of Australia, and there are some handsome palms in Queensland and New South Wales; but neither of these groups is represented in West Australia, unless it be quite in the north.

One more prominent feature in Australian vegetation are the large expanses of the so-called “scrub” of the colonists. This is a dense covering of low bushes, varying in composition in different districts, and named according to the predominating element.

The nearest botanical affinities of the Australian flora are with that of South Africa, though the characteristic genera, as well as the species, are invariably different in the two countries.

* * * * *

I am indebted to Dr. F. Kïær for the following brief note on the Australian mosses:—

The moss flora of Queensland has hitherto been comparatively but little studied. The number of varieties of foliaceous mosses known does not reach 200, while there doubtless are three or four times as many. Among those who have collected mosses in Queensland may be mentioned Miss Hellen Scott and Mrs. Amalie Dietrich, and more recently Mr. F. M. Bailey. Some of the mosses found belong to genera scattered throughout the world, _e.g._, _Sphagnum_, _Dicranum_, _Barbula_, _Bryum_, _Neckera_, _Thuidium_, _Hypnum_, etc. On the other hand genera are found that are peculiar to Australia, and finally there are forms which are characteristic of the tropical and subtropical zone.

As peculiar to Australia, we must first mention among the mosses bearing top-fruit the genus _Dawsonia_, which has not hitherto been found outside of this continent. This genus, of which there are three known species in Queensland, is one of the most beautiful and the largest of all mosses. It resembles a _Polytrichum_ in appearance, and, like the latter, has a hairy cap, but around the opening its fruit is studded with a bunch of threadlike hairs, the latter attaining a number of five hundred and over.

Among other genera hitherto found only in Australia we may mention among mosses having side-fruit the _Euptychium_, remarkable for its leaves, which are folded very compactly, and the short-leaved _Bescherellea_, which abounds in Queensland. The latter genus is known in New Caledonia, and resembles a _Cyrtopus_, but has only a single row of teeth around the mouth.

The genus _Spiridens_, found in many species on the Australian islands, and also on the Sunda Isles, on the Moluccas, and on the Philippine Islands, is not represented at all in Queensland.

Among Australian forms we should also mention one or two species of _Endotrichella_, _Orthorrhynchium_, the beautiful _Braithwaitea_, three species of the handsome _Thamniella_, and a few species of the tree like branched _Hypnodendron_. The _Ptychomnium aciculare_ (_Brid._), common in the southern hemisphere, is also found in Queensland.

In addition to _Octoblepharum albidum_ and _Rhizogonium spiniforme_, found everywhere in the tropics, there are in Queensland several species of the last-named genus.

The genus _Macromitrium_ has many representatives in Queensland (more than ten species). Furthermore, we may here mention several species of the genera _Papillaria_, _Hypopterygium_, and _Rhacopilum_.

The moss flora of Queensland, little as it is known, already presents a type widely differing from the European, and the future will doubtless bring forth many interesting discoveries in this extensive colony.

Of liverworts but few (eighteen) have yet been found in Queensland, but there is a prospect that our knowledge of this interesting group in this country will be supplemented before many years.

IV FAUNA

It is evident that Australia is the country which has been least changed in the later geological time, being now in the main as it was in the early part of the tertiary period. It has also been called a land forgotten in the cretaceous period by the development of the earth. This “land of the dawning” reveals to us a corresponding primitive and peculiar animal life, as well as flora with its proteaceæ, leafless casuarinas, and acacias, which remind us of the vanished vegetation of the elder tertiary period. The major part of Australia’s mammals consists of the remarkable marsupials, which belong to the very oldest and lowest organisation of all known mammals, and which have, without doubt, survived from an earlier geological period, during which they were also found in Europe. Among birds the country has some remarkable species (_Megapodidæ_), the only ones in the world that do not hatch their eggs themselves but, like reptiles, bury them in earth-mounds, whose elements of fermentation produce heat and thus hatch the eggs. The two coursers, the emu and the cassowary, when we except the kiwi-kiwi of New Zealand, have more rudimentary wings than any now existing ostrich.

In the tertiary period Australia is supposed to have been much larger than it now is. It is thought to have included New Guinea and Tasmania, and possibly to have extended eastward to the Fiji Islands. According to the celebrated naturalist Mr. A. R. Wallace, this hypothesis is absolutely necessary in order to explain certain facts connected with the Australian fauna. As already stated, remains of remarkable gigantic marsupials have been found. They lived chiefly on grass, and are not supposed to have had a higher organisation than those now existing. Placental[24] beasts of prey that could disturb the existence of these giants not having been found among the fossils, Wallace is of opinion that the latter became extinct on account of physico-geographical, and particularly climatic, changes taking place at the same time as the ice period appeared in the rest of the world. As a remarkable fact it may be mentioned that remains have recently been found of the gigantic moa (_Dinornis_), a genus hitherto supposed to have been found only in New Zealand.

Footnote 24:

Placental mammals are those having a placenta to nourish the fœtus, as is the case with all mammals except the marsupials and monotremes.

Among the six zoological regions into which Wallace and Sclater divide the _terra firma_ of the globe, one of the best marked and certainly the most peculiar one is the Australian. Australia and New Guinea are the largest countries in this region, which, in addition to New Zealand and the islands of the Pacific, includes the Indian Archipelago east of Borneo, Java, and Bali. The latter islands, all of which belong to the Indian-Malay region, are separated from the Australian by a belt of very deep water, where Wallace’s well-known line is found on the map. The water is shallow between all the islands south-east of this belt—Celebes, Timor, Amboina, Banda, and New Guinea—which evidently all lie on a submarine bank, and have at one time been united with Australia. There are the most striking differences between the fauna on each side of the belt. Apes, rhinoceroses, tapirs, tigers, leopards, and similar Indian and Malay animals disappear, and we enter an entirely new region, the Australian, the chief characteristic of which is that it lacks nearly all the groups of mammals found elsewhere in the world. Instead we either find the peculiar marsupials, or the mammals are entirely wanting, as is the case on most of the South Sea Islands. In ornithology the honey-eaters are especially remarkable, then we have the birds of paradise, the cassowary, and finally the kiwi-kiwi of New Zealand.

The zoological character of the region is most marked in Australia, which is rich in peculiar animal forms. As an island-continent extending from 39° to 11° S. lat., and which consequently is several times as large as the islands of the other regions added together, the country naturally has very various climates. In the southern part there is a climate like that of the countries along the Mediterranean; in the northern there is a regular season of rain; while the centre is more hot and more arid than any other part of the earth. Still, strange to say, the climatic differences are not attended by corresponding variations of the fauna, which is strikingly uniform throughout the country. Many important species are found everywhere in the continent. Generally speaking, Australia is a hot and dry country, and its flora and fauna have been developed in harmony with its physico-geographical conditions. This explains, for instance, why the tropical North Australia has not so luxurious and varied vegetations as the adjacent New Guinea, with its more humid climate. Many of the Australian mammals can subsist without water for a long time. Gould is even of opinion that the large kingfishers, whose food consists mainly of lizards and insects, never drink.

The fauna of Australia has many special forms, and occupies a peculiar, isolated position. This is most apparent among the mammals, which give to the Australian fauna its most marked feature. Imagine a continent about the size of Europe with no other mammals than marsupials, a few bats, rats, and mice. There are no apes, no beasts of prey, no hoofed animals. None of those groups are found from which our domestic animals have been developed. The only exception is the dingo, the Australian dog, but although fossil specimens have been found, it is generally supposed that the dingo was introduced by man; it does not differ much from the wild dogs of other lands. The fact that Australia at present has so many large land animals, which at one time were represented by kindred forms in Europe, shows that the country in some way or other has been united with Asia, just as Great Britain must at some time have been connected with the European continent. But the present remarkable isolation of the Australian mammals from the land fauna of the rest of the world is, as Wallace remarks, the best evidence that Australia and Asia were not united throughout the tertiary period, and it is a most characteristic fact that the only mammals which Australia has in common with the rest of the world are the flying-bats and such small mammals as could most easily be carried on floating logs, roots, and similar objects to foreign coasts. Marsupials are also found in America; but, with this exception, they now exist only in Australia and in the adjacent islands New Guinea and Tasmania, which is evidence that the latter islands were at one time united with Australia.

The marsupials are so called from their having a pouch (_marsupium_) for carrying the immature young. The young are born without much development, and they are at once transferred to the pouch, where they continue to grow until they are able to take care of themselves. The pouch is supported by the marsupial bones, which are equally developed in both sexes. There are also many other peculiarities in the structure of these animals, distinguishing them from the higher mammals, _e.g._ their teeth being quite different from those of other animals.

The large kangaroo bears a young “no larger than the little finger of a human baby, and not unlike it in form.” This helpless, naked, blind, and deaf being the mother puts in an almost inexplicable manner into the pouch with her mouth, and places it on one of the long, slender, milk-giving strings found in the pouch. Here the young remains hanging for weeks, and grows very rapidly. The mother possesses a peculiar muscle with which it is able to press milk into the mouth of the helpless little one, and the larynx of the young has a peculiar structure, so that it can breathe while it sucks, and consequently is not choked. Gradually it assumes the form of its parents, and when big enough it begins to make excursions from the pouch, which continues to enlarge with the growth of the young. These excursions become longer as the young grows larger, and thus this pouch serves both as a second womb and as a nest and home. All marsupials are propagated in this manner, but the number of young may vary from one to fourteen.

The brain of the marsupial is small and has but few convolutions, indicative of small mental development. They are the most stupid of all mammals, and indifferent in regard to all things save the wants of their stomachs. Brehm calls attention to the fact that no marsupial mother plays with her young or makes any effort to teach them.

The marsupials may differ widely in appearance, structure, and habits; they may be as large as a stag and as small as a mouse. Some move on the hind-feet alone, others on all fours; some live on the ground, others in trees, others again are able to fly. Most of them feed on grass, but some of them live on fruits, roots, and leaves; others again on meat and insects; while there are also marsupials that eat honey.

Ever since Captain Cook’s sailors in 1770 came and told him that they had seen the very devil hopping away on his hind legs in the form of an animal, the kangaroo has been inseparably associated with our ideas of Australia, the land of the kangaroo. The kangaroo (_Macropus_) is also the largest and most remarkable of all marsupials, and is represented by many species throughout Australia. The largest one is reddish (_Macropus rufus_) and is found in the interior. Of the smaller kinds we may mention the wallabies, kangaroo-rats, which are about the size of a rabbit, and the pademelon, which is easily recognised by the fact that when it runs it lets one arm drop as if it were broken. During recent years kangaroos have greatly increased in number, one of the causes being the systematic extermination of the dingoes and the decrease of the number of natives. Thus kangaroos, like their smaller relatives the wallabies and the kangaroo-rats, have become noxious animals that destroy the pastures, and the colonists are making great efforts to exterminate them. In Queensland the Government pays a premium for every such animal killed, and in this way the number of marsupials was reduced in the years 1880–1885 by six millions.

The tree-kangaroos (_Dendrolagus_), living in the dense scrubs of Northern Queensland, are very remarkable and very different from the other members of the family.

The phalangers (_Phalangeridæ_) are a large family found everywhere in Australia. They inhabit the trees, and like most of the marsupials, seek their food at night. They are usually called opossums, but are very different from the genuine opossum of America. Just as the latter are the most perfect and most intelligent of all marsupials, so the Australian opossums are the most perfectly organised of all Australian marsupials. They are, so to speak, the apes of the marsupials, in that they feed on fruit, but are able to live on insects and birds’ eggs; have a prehensile tail and a movable thumb, which almost converts their feet into hands.

Closely related to the latter are the flying-squirrels (_Petaurus_) which are strikingly like those in India. The smallest one of this family, the beautiful _Acrobates pygmæus_, is a perfect wonder of elegance and graceful movement. Though not larger than a little mouse, still it flies through the air as skilfully as the larger species. It frequently becomes the prey of domestic cats.

A transition between the kangaroos and the phalangers is found in the marsupial bear (_Phascolarctus_), while the rodents are represented by the large, plump wombat (_Phascolomys_).

The family _Dasyuridæ_ are carnivorous. The colonist usually names them after animals of the old world, “marsupial cat,” “marsupial tiger,” “marsupial wolf,” etc. All these marsupial beasts of prey are very rapacious, and one or two of them are quite equal to the martens and weasels in this respect. The marsupial wolf (_Thylacinus_) and the marsupial devil (_Sarcophilus_) in Tasmania are the most ferocious and most powerful of all the Australian animals, and do great damage among the sheep. The former is, however, wellnigh exterminated. Native cats (_Dasyurus geoffroyi_) are numerous everywhere, and are hated by the colonists, because they attack the poultry. Near Mount Elephant, in Victoria, five hundred of them were killed in one night by two poisoned sheep carcasses. There had long been a drought, so that the animals had congregated in the only place where water was to be found.

We now come to the _Monotremata_, the lowest group of all mammals. They have the marsupial bones, but no pouch, and they are destitute of teeth. Of this remarkable family there are only two genera, the duck-billed platypus and the spiny ant-eater.

The duck-billed platypus (_Ornithorhynchus anatinus_) is easily recognised by its horny jaws, which have a striking resemblance to the bill of a duck. The animal is about fifteen inches long, and the body, which is covered with close brown hair, is broad, flat, and somewhat like that of a reptile. The feet are short and the toes are webbed. During the daytime the ornithorhynchus sleeps in deep burrows dug in the banks of rivers. It is common in the southern and eastern part of Australia, and is also found in Tasmania.

The spiny ant-eater (_Echidna_) resembles our porcupine in appearance and size, has quills like it, and can roll itself into a ball. The toes are not webbed, but the animal is a very good swimmer. It feeds on ants and insects, and, like other ant-eaters, has a long, slender tongue, which has a secretion of a sticky substance. It is a most powerful animal, and can disappear so rapidly in loose earth or sand that it seems to sink into the ground. Its flesh is very fat, and is considered a great delicacy by the blacks. On Herbert river, where the ant-eater is called gombian, the natives hunt it with the help of tamed dingoes.

These mammals, the two most remarkable ones on the globe, reveal a wonderful relationship to the lower vertebrates, reptiles and birds. Thus we find that the front extremities are fastened to the breast-bone by a highly developed coracoid and an epicoracoid, as in the case of lizards. This does not occur in any other mammal. Their skulls, like those of birds, have no visible sutures whatever.

The most remarkable fact, however, is that these animals do not bear living young, but lay eggs. The latter contain a large yolk, and when hatched the young are suckled by the mother.

The stages of development of the eggs are different from those of all other mammals, and resemble to a great extent those of reptiles and birds. As the eggs are _meroblastic_,[25] these animals seem to be even more closely related to birds and reptiles than to the mammals.

Footnote 25:

Where only a small part of the yolk goes to form the fœtus, while the greater part is used to nourish it, as is the case with birds, the egg is called _meroblastic_. With mammals, all the yolk is used to form the fœtus (_holoblastic eggs_).

The eggs lying in the ovaries are ⅛ of an inch in diameter, possibly even more, and they certainly are the largest eggs produced by mammals. In a human being and in the higher mammals the egg averages ¹⁄₁₂₅ of an inch in diameter.

The young seem to require a long time to arrive at maturity. They are hatched small, blind, and naked, and their mouths have not at first the form of a beak, but are thick, round, soft, and well adapted to receive the milk, which is strained through the lacteal glands, for there are no nipples. As these animals have no pouch (the ant-eater has a rudimentary one in the form of a crease in the skin while it nurses its young), the young remain in the nest, where the mother suckles them.

Though the ornithology of Australia is not so isolated in its character as the mammals are, still its birds are very remarkable, and have almost as many points of interest. We here find eagles, hawks, thrushes, swallows, fly-catchers, sea-gulls, ducks, etc., though of other species than those to which we are accustomed; but we are astonished that vultures and woodpeckers, which exist in all other parts of the world, are wholly wanting.

The honey-eaters (_Meliphagidæ_), so well adapted to the circumstances of the country, are very remarkable. As the trees and bushes of Australia have a great wealth of flowers, but are wanting in juicy fruits, many of its birds find their food in the flowers, inhabiting the trees and bushes, particularly gum-trees and banksias, and rarely coming down on the ground to seek food. These characteristic birds, of which there are no less than 200 species, remind us by their mode of life of the American humming-birds; still they are very different from the latter. The largest are of the size of a small dove, but much more slender. They are strong lively birds, which with their powerful feet cling fast to the branches, almost like titmice, while they suck the flowers, and their tongue ends in a brush, so that they can easily lick up the honey and the honey-eating insects. Even some of the parrots, the so-called brush-tongued (_Trichoglossidæ_), live on honey and pollen, and are peculiar to Australia.

The strange habits of many of the Australian birds have already been described, _e.g._ the play-houses built by the æsthetic bower-birds, and the three species which do not themselves hatch their eggs, like the reptiles, but leave the hatching to be done by artificial heat. The latter belong to the family of _Megapodidæ_, a group which receives its name from the fact that their feet and claws are very large and powerful, and consequently well adapted to building the large mounds in which the eggs are laid.

It is a strange fact that the kingfishers found everywhere in the world, and the equally cosmopolitan pigeons, should be so numerous in Australia. Among the former are the wonderful laughing jackasses (_Dacelo_) whose voice is unlike that of any other bird. In Australia the pigeons attain the highest development both as to wealth of species and brilliancy of plumage. Some of them even have a crest on the top of the head, a very rare ornament for this family. The extraordinary development of these defenceless birds indicates that they have but few enemies in Australia. Wallace gives as the reason for their great numbers the total absence of apes, cats, weasels, and other animals that live in trees and that eat the eggs and the young of birds, while the very green colour of these birds conceals them from birds of prey, their only foes. On the plains in the interior of Queensland countless numbers of pigeons are seen, but of modest-coloured plumage, to protect them in this open country.

Many of the Australian birds are distinguished for their brilliant plumage, and in this respect they easily rank with the humming-birds of America and with the trogons and parrots of India. Thus we have the elegant little wrens whose leading colours are azure blue and scarlet-red; the yellow and velvety black regent-bird (_Sericulus melinus_); and the metallic glittering rifle-bird (_Ptilorhis victoriæ_); and finally, the finches, that have a combination of colours the like of which is to be found only in butterflies. Among the many parrots, which include such strange forms as the white and the black cockatoos, there are some which are unique in the beauty of their colours. So remarkable a decoration as the tail of the lyre-bird (_Menura_) is found nowhere else in the world of birds.

The stately emu, which together with the cassowary represents the ostrich family in Australia, is still numerous in the open country. The cassowary, on the other hand, which is found only in the north-eastern tropical part, is rare, and will doubtless soon become extinct as civilisation gradually advances and clears the scrubs.

Ducks, geese, and other swimming birds are numerous, and afford excellent sport, but as they are much sought by sportsmen, the colonies have passed laws to protect them during a certain season of the year. Among the geese which have only half-webbed toes, the most common is the “black and white” (_Anseranas melanoleuca_). These beautiful birds gather in large flocks, but as civilisation advances they are gradually decreasing in number. At present they are numerous only in Northern Queensland, where the flocks are so large and dense that the natives can easily kill them with their spears. They were of great value to Leichhardt on his overland expedition to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

It is a remarkable fact that some species of Australian birds without any apparent reason suddenly leave the district where they have had their habitat for years, and settle somewhere else, to disappear again after a few years. Gould gives several examples of this. A squatter whom I knew told me that the pelicans several years ago quite unexpectedly made their appearance on Darling river in New South Wales, 400 miles from the coast. Neither the whites nor the blacks had ever seen them there before. They settled down near a lake called Dry Lagoon and bred there. Meanwhile the lagoon dried up as usual, and the pelicans were obliged to bring fish for their young from a lake two miles away. As soon as the young became large enough they were transferred to the latter lake, the whole colony requiring three weeks for the journey. As a rule the pelicans build their nests on islands near the coast.

Australia has no less than 700 species of birds; of these probably 600 are found in Queensland alone, and this must be said to be a great wealth of species. Europe, which is somewhat larger and has been incomparably much more thoroughly explored, has only about 500 species.

Reptiles, amphibious animals, and fishes are well represented in Australia, and among them are some of great interest.

Lizards are found everywhere, but it is a strange fact that, as in the case of plants, some species are found in West Australia that are peculiar to this district and have never been observed outside of it. That characteristic forms are not wanting is shown by the frilled-lizard (_Chlamydosaurus kingii_) represented at the beginning of this chapter. Around its neck it has a large, loose skin which it is able to raise into a Queen Elizabeth ruff. Unlike all other lizards, this animal assumes in sitting the same posture as a kangaroo, and when startled it makes, like them, long jumps five to six feet high before it begins to run.

Although _Viperidæ_ and _Crotalidæ_, which elsewhere are the most venomous families of snakes, are not found in Australia, still scarcely any other part of the globe has so many venomous serpents in comparison with the number of those that are harmless. Here, as elsewhere, the number of snakes increase with the heat of the climate, so that Tasmania has only three species, while Queensland can show fifty, and among the latter several large harmless pythons, which the natives are fond of eating. Water-snakes abound along the coasts of tropical Australia, and are all venomous.

Amphibious animals with tails (salamanders) are not found. On the other hand, frogs are plentiful. They have a remarkable faculty for accommodating themselves to all the dry climatic conditions of the country. In South Australia a drought once lasted for twenty-six months. The country was transformed into a desert, and life was not to be seen. Sheep and cattle had perished, and so had the marsupials. Suddenly rain poured down. The long drought was at an end; and six hours after the storm had begun the rain was welcomed by the powerful voices of the frogs. Flies afterward came in great numbers, and then bats appeared in countless swarms. On my travels in Western Queensland I heard the people on Diamantina river speak of a species of large frog which after rain buried themselves about six inches down in the ground, and remained there during the dry season. These frogs contain much water, a fact known to the natives, who dig them up in the dry season and quench their thirst by squeezing the water out of them. The white population also sometimes resort to these frogs for water. They know the little mounds, which resemble mole-hills, under which the frogs lie hid, and dig them out. According to report, such a frog contains about a wine-glassful of “clear, sweet water.”

The colonists of Australia have a fondness for giving familiar names to Australian animals. Thus they have called a large fish found in some of the rivers of Central Queensland burnett salmon. This fish, which the natives call barramunda, is, however, no salmon, for both salmon and carp are entirely wanting in Australia. But its size and its fat and delicate-tasting flesh reminded the people of the salmon, and it had long been eagerly sought as food both by whites and blacks, when in 1870 the scientific world became acquainted with it, and discovered in it a remarkable survival of the prehistoric past. Fossil teeth of this fish, now known as _Ceratodus forsteri_, had long ago been found in the Trias and Jura formations in Europe, India, and America, but the animal was of course thought to be extinct, like the _Iguanodon_ or _Dinotherium_. Like the _Protopterus_ from Africa and the _Lepidosiren_ from the Amazon river, it belongs to the very ancient and remarkable lung-fish (_Dipnoi_), which, as the name indicates, has both gills and lungs. _Ceratodus forsteri_ has only one lung, and can breathe with it alone, or with the gills alone, or with both at the same time, and therefore it leaves the water in the night and goes ashore, where it eats grass and leaves, while in the daytime it may be seen sunning itself on logs lying out of the water. This “living fossil,” which attains a length of six feet, thus forms a remarkable connecting link between fishes and reptiles.

While Australia is poor in regard to butterflies, it has many beautiful beetles, _e.g._ the family _Buprestidæ_. The lower animal life is peculiar, but still comparatively little known.

* * * * *

Professor G. O. Sars, of Christiania, has made some exceedingly interesting experiments, whereby he has succeeded in hatching artificially and domesticating in his aquarium various Australian fresh-water _Entomostraca_. The materials for these experiments consisted of small quantities of mud taken from the bottom of lakes and small fresh-water ponds near Rockhampton. After being thoroughly dried, I forwarded this mud to Christiania. The specimens sent looked on their arrival like small masses of rock, and were so hard that they could scarcely be broken with a hammer. Nevertheless they contained living germs in the form of eggs, which had been deposited by entomostraca living in the waters in question. In most cases these eggs proved to be encased in peculiar capsules, which frequently bore a startling resemblance to bean-pods, and in some of the specimens they were found in great numbers. By softening the mud and by a suitable preparation in aquaria, Professor Sars succeeded not only in producing perfectly developed individuals, but also in getting them to propagate in the aquaria, and thus it became possible to make very exhaustive investigations in regard to a portion of Australia’s fauna hitherto almost entirely unknown. One of the most striking forms hatched in this manner is the little _Daphnia_ called _D. lumholtzii_.

In addition to this, nine others have been described by Professor Sars in two treatises: “On some Australian Cladocera raised from dried mud,” _Christiania Videnskabs-selskabs Forhandlinger_, 1885; and “Additional Notes on Australian Cladocera,” _Christiania Videnskabs-selskabs Forhandlinger_, 1888. On the same subject he has recently published a treatise: “On _Cyclestheria hislopi_ (Baird), a new generic type of bivalve Phyllopoda, _Christiania Videnskabs-selskabs Forhandlinger_, 1887,” in which he has described a most interesting animal form, which the author hatched in the same manner, and observed through several generations. This animal has been noted heretofore in specimens from India and Ceylon, but very imperfectly, and hence mistakes have been made in regard to its systematic position, and no knowledge was obtained as to its interesting habits and life. It belongs to the so-called shell-covered phyllopoda, of which only a limited number of species have hitherto been known. One of its chief characteristics is the fact that it is enclosed in a transparent double shell, which has a deceptive likeness to a clam-shell. The anatomical examination of the animal has demonstrated that it cannot be classified with any of the known genera, but forms the type for a new one, to which the name cyclestheria has been affixed. In regard to propagation and development, this form differs widely from all the phyllopoda heretofore known. Contrary to the general rule, the eggs are developed within the shell of the mother animal, and this development is direct, not through any metamorphosis, as is the case with the other known _Phyllopoda_. In his treatise Professor Sars has given the whole history of the development of this animal, which abounds in interesting facts.

Finally, I may add that the results obtained by these hatchings are already so important that they supply materials for many future treatises, and that many lower fresh-water animals, not only entomostraca, but also forms belonging to totally different departments of zoology, _e.g._ _Bryozoæ_, have in this way been thoroughly examined and studied in a living condition.

INDEX

Aborigines, two types of, 129; characteristic feature, 130; sight of, 143; appearance, 181; aquiline noses, 130; results of civilisation, 182, 348; class divisions, 199; description, 260, 270; estimate of white man, 292; doomed, 348.

_Acacia, fragrans_, 2; _bidwillii_ 25; _salicina_, 25; _harpophylla_, 33; _excelsa_, 49; _pendula_ (myall), 49, 76.

_Acrobates pygmæa_, 380.

_Acrocephalus australis_, 21.

Adelaide, city of, 5.

_Ælurædus maculosus_, 96.

_Æpyornis maximus_, fossil egg of, 6.

_Alcyone azurea_, 150.

_Alpinia cærulea_, 296.

_Amphibia_, 384.

_Andropogon contortus_ (spear-grass), 23.

_Anseranas melanoleuca_, 383.

Ants, white, 19; nests, 27; black, 118.

_Araucaria, bidwillii_ (bunya-bunya), 21, 372; _cunninghamii_, 372.

Arrowroot, 74.

_Artamus sordidus_ (wood-swallow), 28.

Artesian wells, 40.

Asters, Queensland, 51.

A strange household, 81.

_Astrebla elymoides_, 37.

_Astur radiatus_, 329.

Australian whites, 29, 315 _passim_; scenery, 209, 315.

Bailey, F. M. (on mosses), 374.

Ballarat, 8.

“Balnglan,” a dingo, 180, 223, 226, 241; death of, 267.

Bandicoot (_Paramelidæ_), 27, 73, 92.

Baobab, 374.

Barcoo, river, 39; rot, 58.

Basaltic table-land, Leichhardt’s, 104.

Basket, 193–195 _passim_.

_Batatas edulis_, 78.

Bats, 19.

_Bauhinia hookerii_, 25.

Bear, native (_Phascolarctus cinereus_), 9.

Bee, European, 29; Australian, 142.

Beef, 36.

Beliander, 58.

Bellenden Kerr Hills, 102.

Bendi, weapon, 332–334.

Bird of paradise, 302.

Blacks of Herbert river, 72; civilised, 76; appearance of, 77; festival, 84; agility, 89, 96; keen sight, 95; money valueless, 106; only cult, 136; absence of clothing, 169; of medicines, 183; depredations, 221; cruelty (women), 222; greatest delicacy, 271; myths unknown, 282; cannibalism, 287; lazy, 290.

Blankets, 264.

Bledensbourne, 53.

_Bolboceras rhinoceros_, 329.

Boomerang, 49; origin of, 52; Indian, S.E., 52; Assyrian and Egyptian use of, 51.

Boongary, 102; home of, 152; food of, 157; taken, 226.

Bora ceremonies, 136.

Borboby, a meeting for duels, 119, 127.

Borrogo, a small marsupial, 207.

Bottle-tree, 33, 35.

Boundary-rider, 57.

Bower-birds, 28, 139.

Box-tree (_Eucalyptus_), 25.

Boyma (Bhaiamé), a supreme Being, 283.

Bread-fruit tree, 79.

Brigalow-scrub, 33, 37, 52.

Brisbane, 16.

Brow-band, 121, 331.

Brown, Robert, botanist, 369.

Bunjup, an evil spirit, 202.

_Buprestidæ_ (beetles), 329, 385.

Burial customs, 275.

Burnett salmon (barramunda), 385.

Bush costume, 19; men, 58–60.

Butcher-bird, 94.

Butterflies, 151, 385.

Cabbage, 79.

_Cacatua roseicapilla_, 35.

Cajeput oil, 24.

_Calamus australis_, 89, 103.

_Calladium_, 21.

_Callistemon lanceolatum_, 26.

Calliungal, town, 30.

_Callornis metallica_, 96.

Camping out, 32.

Camps, Herbert river hills, 148; cave, 153; hills in rain, 168 _seq._; with unpleasant bedfellow, 185 _seq._; no supper, 209–211.

Cannibalism, 101, 134, 176, 254, 273; in Burma, 274.

Canning meat, Rockhampton, 16.

Canoona Diggings, oldest gold mine, 323.

_Capparis nobilis_, 25.

Cardamom-tree, 96.

Cardwell, town, 66, 250, 263.

Carpentaria, Gulf of, natives of, 273.

Carrots, 79.

_Casuarina_, 33 _passim_.

_Casuarius australis_ (cassowary), 99.

Cat, native, 27; bird, 96.

Cattle, alarmed, 84; farmers, 35.

Cedar, red (_Cedrela_), 67.

_Centropus_, 94.

_Ceratodus forsteri_, 385.

_Ceyx pusilla_, 97.

Charters Towers, gold beds, 65.

Child-birth, 134.

Children, black, 192.

Chinaman, a native, 147; wife, 163; treachery, 167; greediness, 173; rascality, 185; reappearance, 231.

Chinese hated, 36.

Chivalry, 170.

_Chlamydodera maculata_, 28.

_Chlamydosaurus kingii_, 376, 384.

Christmas in the bush, 207.

_Cicada aurora_, 222.

_Cicada_, evil spirit, 202; humming, 217.

_Cinchona_, 74.

Clay pipes, 107.

Cleveland Bay, 65.

Climate, tropical, 19; cold nights, 56; Christmas hot, 57.

Cloncurry, copper, 44.

Club (_nolla-nolla_), 72 _seq._

Coal, 74, 366.

Cockatoo, 27; red-breasted, 35; numerous, 57.

Cocoa-nut, 21; palm, 79.

Cod, black-fish, 27.

Coffee, 73.

Coleoptera, 153; larvæ, 154.

_Colocasia macrorhiza_, 153.

Comet river, 33.

Conquat, loquat, guava, 79.

Coomooboolaroo, 204, 325.

Cordilleras, Australian, 102.

Cormorants, 22.

Costume, 106, 120, 129, 215.

_Cracticus nigrogularis_, 94.

Cranes, gray and blue, 22.

Crawfish, 151.

Crime, only, 126.

Curr, E. M., “_The Australian Race_,” 307 _passim_.

Customs, aboriginal, ornamental scars, 135; making fire, 141; breaking sticks, 141; pomade and glue, 142; honey water, 144; rights of property, 147; eating eggs, 149; marriage, 164; burial, 277; cremation, 279.

_Cycas media_, 164.

_Cyclestheria hislopi_, 387.

_Cygnus atratus_, 1, 22.

_Dacelo gigas_, 26.

_Dactylopsila trivirgata_, 220.

Dalrymple Creek, 248; Gap, 261.

Damper, 32.

Dancing, 236 seq.

_Daphnia lumholtzii_, 386.

Darling Downs, 21; floods, 61.

_Dasyurus_, 27; _maculatus_, 174; _Dasyuridæ_, 80.

Date-palms, Queensland, 21.

Dawson river, 45.

Dee river, 30.

_Dendrolagus lumholtzii_, 102; caught, 226, 235; mode of hunting, 231.

Devil, 114; description of, 202.

Dialects. _Vide_ Language.

Diamantina river, native work, heat on, 44–55.

_Dicæum hirundinaceum_, 253.

_Diemenia_, 299.

_Digitalis purpurea_, 14.

Dingo, 38; use of, 99, 165, 175, 178, 179.

_Dinornis_, 377.

_Dipnoi_, 385.

_Diprotodon_, 368.

_Dipsas fusca_, 62.

Dirge, 204.

DISCOVERERS and EXPLORERS, 355–359.

Diseases and epidemics, 181.

Doctor, native, 183.

Dog and snake, 64.

Doves, 96.

Dress, mourning, 204.

Drought, 37.

Drugs, 108.

_Duboisia hopwoodii_, 49.

Dugong, 315 _seq._; meat, 319; oil, 320; habitat, 321.

Dungeness, 66.

Education of children, 193.

Eels, Queensland, 23.

_Elanus axillaris_ (kite), 220.

Elderslie, 44, 53.

Elephant sugar-cane, 63.

Elm-tree, 14.

Emus, inquisitive, 30.

Erysipelas, 181.

_Erythrina vespertilio_ (cork), 141.

_Eucalyptus, amygdalina_, 9; _tereticornis_, _brachypoda_, 24; _terminalis_, _polyanthemos_, _robusta_. _Vide_ Flora.

_Eudynamis flindersii_ (cuckoo), 28.

_Eurynassa australis_, 93, 154.

Evaporation in bush, 42.

Expedition Range, 33.

_Falco subniger_, 57.

Familiarity breeds contempt, 111.

Fauna—fossil; Wallace’s line; marsupials; monotremata—why most noteworthy, 376–388 _passim_; birds, 382–384; reptiles, 384; amphibia, 384; fish, barramunda, 385; butterflies, 385; beetles, 385. _Entomostraca_, Professor Sars on, 385–388.

Feast, 85.

Ferns, tree-, 103.

Fever, 57.

_Ficus, elastica_, 14; _platypoda_, _cunninghamii_, 25.

Fig, European, 21; black, 141; rarest, 208.

Finch-Hatton, Mr., “_Advance Australia_,” 278.

Fire, producing, 141.

Fitzroy river, 16; mountains, 16.

Fleas at Elderslie, 45.

Flora—peculiar, evergreen, flowering; census of _Eucalyptus_, _Proteaceæ_, _Acaciæ_, _Banksia_, cone-bearers, and allies; grass-trees, baobab, ferns, mosses, 369–375 _passim_.

Food, 21; eating children, 134; beetles and larvæ, 154 _passim_; _pediculi_, 117, 223; fleas, 179; grasshoppers, 187; eel (high), 203; mode of cooking, 296; care of, 297.

Frogs, 19.

Gar-fish, 23.

Geese, Queensland, 22.

Gentleman, black, 84.

GEOLOGY—mountain and river systems, primitive rock, coal-bearing strata, fossils, “desert sandstone,” volcanoes, gold, 366–368.

Georgina river, 128; romance of, 213.

Gidya-scrub, 37.

Gold, _passim_; annual production, 9; region, 253; mount, 324.

Gould, 23, 171.

Gracemere, residence in, 17, 20, 21; flora and fauna, 24; landscape, 26; return to, 61; snake story, 61.

_Grallina picata_, 94.

_Granadilla_, and fruit, 79.

Grauan, jungle-hen, 149.

Great Dividing Range, 34, 102 _passim_.

Greenshank, 56.

Grogoragally, son of the Supreme, 283.

Guana, 79.

Gum-tree. Vide _Eucalyptus_.

Hair, cutter, 108; quality, quantity of, 131.

Handicraft, 331.

Harpoon, 317.

Hawks in Queensland, 62.

Heaven and hell, 283.

_Helix cunninghamii_, 27.

_Hemibelideus_, a new sub-genus, 196.

Herbert river, _passim_; nets, 94.

Herbert Vale, 65–74; quarters, 76; abandoned for cattle station, 78; keeper and Kanaka at, 80; bill of fare, 81; cook, 80 _seq._; farewell, 302.

Hinchinbrook Island, 67.

HISTORICAL OUTLINE—before discovery, DISCOVERERS and EXPLORERS, colonisation, 353–365.

Holloway’s pills, 280.

Home life among natives, 191.

Honey, 194, 195 _passim_.

_Hoplocephalus_, 62.

Hornets, 38.

Horse-racing, 7.

Houses, North Queensland, 79.

Humour, native, 239, 291.

Husband, duties of, 161.

_Hyla cærulea_, 18.

_Hypsiprymnodon moschatus_, rare, 114.

Idolatry non-existent, 129.

Iguana, 53.

Imitative faculty, 291.

Infant colour, 132.

_Inoceramus maximus_, 367.

_Irichosurus vulpecula_, 11, 19, 221, 232.

Irish shepherd, a type, 40.

Isis Downs station, 57; liquor-dealer, 60, 61.

_Itaka_, ornamental tufts, 238.

Jabiru (yabiru), 96.

Jacaranda, Brazil, 21.

Jackass, laughing, a kingfisher, 26, 382.

Jacky, native attendant, 77, 92; his full dress, 120; at contest, 125; story-teller, 256; inciting to murder, 290.

Jimmy, a native, a murderer, 245–251, 254; portrait of, 255; scene of crime, 261.

Jungle-hens, 96; mound-builders, 97.

Kadjera, poisonous palm, 164.

Kāmin, climbing instrument, 89.

Kanaka, 64; the, 80, 124, 178, 270, 284, 290, 363.

Kangaroo Island, 2.

Kangaroo, larger, 29; hunt, 33; hard to kill, 180; tree-kangaroo, see _Dendrolagus lumholtzii_; rat, 11, 27, 29; size, 327; nature and nutrition of young, 379; strength and boldness, 327, 328.

Kassik, a pack-horse, 74, 138, 289; bucking, 291; falls, 301.

Kélanmi, native girl, story of, 233 _seq._

Kidneys, eating the human, 272.

Kingfisher, 97; racket-tail, 97; blue and red, 150; all over the world, 382.

Kings appointed by squatters, 336 _seq._

Kissing unknown, 213.

Kite, 43; noticeable, 57.

Koraddan, a fruit, 165

Korroboree, 41, 237.

Kusso and kamala, Abyssinian cure for tape-worm, 153.

Kvingan, evil spirit, 201, 205.

Ladies, white, 8; in the bush, 322 _seq._

Lagoons, Valley of, 243; origin of name, 253.

_Lagorchestes conspicillatus_ (rat), 29.

Landscape, Australian, breathes melancholy, 209.

Languages, all closely allied, 304; comparative words for _eye_, 305; numerals, 306, 309; personal pronouns, 306; common peculiarities, 306; grammar, 307; origin, 307; comparative syntax, 307; brevity of expression, 308; suffix _go_, 308; proper names, 309; named from _negatives_, _one_ from affirmative, Langue d’_oc_ et _oyl_, 310; comparative table, 311; words from Herbert river, 312, 313.

Larvæ, edible, in acacia, 153, 154 _passim_.

_Lathrodectus scelio_ (spider), 39.

Lava, 253.

Leaves as toy-boomerangs, 52.

Lemons, antidote to tick-bites, 266.

_Leucopathia acquisita_, 99.

Liberality of Gongola, 180; of hunter, 198.

_Livistonia_, 103, 150.

Lizard, 27, 384.

Loquat, 79.

Lotus-bird, 22.

Love among natives, 213.

Lung-fish (_Ceratodus forsteri_), 385.

Mackay river, 63.

M‘Leay’s Museum, Sydney, 14.

_Macropus, dorsalis_, 29; _giganteus_, 29.

Magpie, Australian, 33.

Mango, 21.

Mangola-Maggi, a native, 258, 287.

Mangoran, a study, 112; danger from, 288 _seq._

Marriage ceremonies, 212, 213.

_Marsilea_ (nardu), 41.

Marsupials, destructive to grass, 29; smallest, 43.

Mat as clothing, 169.

Matrimony in Queensland, 60.

_Megaloprepia magnifica_, 214.

_Megapodius tumulus_, 149. _Vide_ Fauna.

_Melaleuca leucadendron_, 24.

Melbourne, 5; climate, 8; Queen of the South, 12.

Melodies, native, 41, 156–158.

Message sticks, 303, 304.

Miasma, 261.

Migration of souls, 279, 282.

Mika-operation, 47.

Miklucho-Maclay, Baron, 47.

Milk, rarely used in bush, 36, 57; a luxury, 88.

Minnie Downs, 31, 35; farewell to, 61.

Mitchell-grass, 37.

Mólle-Mólle, a native tragedy, 246.

Mongan, a mammal, 172, 215.

Monsoons, 102.

Moogeegally, half human, half divine, 283.

Morbora, a native, 286.

“More pork,” 32.

_Morelia variegata_, 294.

Moreton Bay, 16.

Mosquito-nets, 56.

Mosses, note on, 374, 375.

Mound-builder, 97.

Mount Morgan, gold, 324.

Mountains, Blue, 15; Coast; 101, 102, 116, 140; Great Dividing Range, 34, 102; Cordilleras, 102; Sea-View Range, 121, 180; annoyance from leeches, 265.

Mourning, signs of, 203.

Mueller, Baron F. von, 9. _Vide_ Flora.

Mullagan, black giant, 129.

Mullet, fresh-water, 23.

Mummy, 278.

Murder, punishment of, 45.

Murrumbidgee, 129.

Mūrŭp (_revenant_), 279.

Music, vocal and instrumental, 156, 236.

Musical instruments, 157.

Myall, savage blacks, or _Acacia pendula_, 49, 76.

_Mycteria australis_, 96.

_Mygnimia australasiæ_ (hornet), 38.

Myths, South Australia, 282.

Nardu, 41.

Natives (Diamantina river), 44; slaughter of, 53; study of, 80; mark of distinction, 84; traits, 100; cannibals, 101; instinct for locality, 108; terror of firearms, 108; insensibility to cold, 111, 114; contest, 119; idea of number, 129; two types of, 129; voices of, 135; comprehension of pictures, 154; disposition of, 158; occupations of, 177; burial customs, 277; keenness of sight, 295; snake cooking, 296.

Natives, in original condition, 104; food, 106; terror of darkness and devil, 114; acute sense of smell, 114; agility, 115; morning toilet, 116; height, 129; dread of rain, 140; as woodcutters, 148; friendliness, 180.

Nelly, the cook, 80, 178; hunting, 222; change in, 269; bloodthirsty, 290.

_Nelumbium speciosum_, 25.

_Nephrurus asper_, 329.

Ngalloa, rare animal, 220.

Nilgora, typical savage, 223, 241, 242.

Nocuous grasses, 23, 43.

Nogoa river, 34.

Nolla-nolla, club, 72, 122.

Norseman cold in Australia, 30.

Norwegian scheme, 8.

_Nuphar luteum_, 14.

Opals, 44.

Opium, abuse of, 338.

Opossum, 11, 91; caught, 221; thread, 332.

Orange-groves, Parramatta river, 15; trees, Queensland, 21; moth, 28; orchards, 79.

Ornaments, personal, of natives, 135–137, 238.

_Ornithorhynchus_, killed, 214; swimming, 253.

_Orthonyx spaldingii_, 155.

_Orthoptera_, 73, 151.

_Otĕro_, and other relationships, 199; ingratitude of Yanki’s, 209.

Palm, lawyer, home of, 152, 172; fan, 103, 150; banana, 103.

_Pandanus_, 95.

Pantomime, primitive, 239.

_Papillæ mammæ_ cut off, 135.

_Papyrus_, Egyptian, 21.

Parasites and epiphytes, 25.

_Parra gallinacea_, 22.

Parramatta river, 15.

Parrot, affection of, 34; scarce, 94.

Pasturage, 37.

Peak Downs, 29, 45.

Peculiar smell of natives, 135.

_Pediculi_, 117.

_Pelargonium_, Queensland, 21.

Pelicans, Queensland, 22.

Perch, Queensland, 23.

_Petauroides, volans_, 91, 181; _breviceps_, 208.

Phalanger, flying, 90.

_Phascolarctus cinereus_, 9.

_Phascologale minutissima_, 43, 44, 294.

_Phragmites communis_, 23.

_Phrictis crassipes_, 38.

Pickle-bottle, a native, 112; obstinacy of, 138.

Pigeon, Diamantina river, 43; Torres Strait, 96; rare, North Queensland, 208; king, 214.

Pike, gar-fish, 23.

_Pimelea hæmatostachya_, 29.

Pine-apple, Queensland, 21.

Pipes, 113; holders for, 130.

_Pitta strepitans_, 27.

_Pituri_, 49.

_Platycercus pulcherrimus_, 34; nest of, 327.

_Platypus_, 30.

Pleuro-pneumonia, 88.

_Plotus_, 22.

_Podargus cuvierii_, 32.

Poisons unknown, 174.

Police, native mounted, 46, 49; cruelty of, 54; native sergeant of, 251.

Pork, aversion to, 225.

Precarious position of author, 289 _seq._

Preparation of food, 296.

Primitive tribe, a, 191.

Protector of the blacks, 73; murdered, 262.

_Pseudechis_, black snake, 64.

_Pseudochirus, archeri_, 152, 173, 266; _herbertensis_, 173, 213; _lemuroides_, 196.

_Ptiloris victoriæ_, 171.

_Ptychosperma cunninghamii_, 171.

Punishment, 126.

Python, Australian, 294.

Quandang-tree, 70.

Queensland, proportion of men to women, 59; dialect of white children, 8; East, 16; precious metals, 44; native mounted police, 46; climate, 19, 57; Central, 21; sugar, 64; natives, 68, 69; Northern, blacks of, 11; Western (dew), 33, 35; farewell to, 61; Queen’s Hotel, Townsville, 65.

Quinine, 74.

Rain in bush, 169, 312.

Rats, plague of, 43; method of catching, 73.

Rape of the Sabines, 184.

Religion, 339.

Respect for old women, 200.

Rice, 74.

Rifle-bird, 171.

Ring-barking, 9.

Rivers, Yarra, 9; Parramatta, 15; Fitzroy, 16; Brisbane, 16; Burnett, 21; Dee, 30; Nogoa, 34; Thompson, 40; Dawson, 45; Diamantina, 55; Mackay, 63; Boulya, 128; Murrumbidgee, 129; Murray, tribes on the, 284; Herbert River and Vale, 66 _seq._

Rockhampton, 16; botanical gardens, 17; flora and fauna, 24; drunkards in, 57; return to, 61.

Rock-wallabies, 253.

Sacrifices unknown, 284.

Sandy blight, 57.

Scenery, _passim_; Herbert river, 74, 315.

_Scenopæus dentirostris_ (bower-bird), 139.

Screw-palm, 95.

Scrub, 37, 96, 102, 289; stillness, 294; clad mountain-tops, 302.

_Scythrops novæ-hollandiæ_, 97.

_Sequoia wellingtonia_, 9.

Serpent adventure, 299.

Sheep farmers, 35.

Silver, 44.

Skulls, 259; measurements, 260.

Slaughter day, 85.

Smell of land, 2.

_Sminthopsis virginiæ_, 252, 294.

Snakes, 61, 62, 64; hunting, as food, cooking, sharing, flesh-flavour, 294 _seq._

Snake-birds, 22.

Snake bites, treatment of, 183, 298.

Soap, natives fond of, 291.

Spear-grass, 23.

Spearmen, 92.

Specimens, packing and conveying of, 300.

Spider paralysed by hornet, 38.

Springsure, Kangaroo hunt near, 33.

Spruce, Australian, 21.

Squatter’s homestead, 59.

Squirrel, flying, 90.

Starling, glossy, 96.

Station, description of a, 36; korroboree at Westlands, 41.

_Stigmodera_ (beetle), 220.

Stinging-tree, 152.

Stock, Queensland, 21; whip, 53, 59; yard, 36.

Sugar, 64; a necessary, 264; cane, 75; plantation, 301.

Suttungo, tobacco, 113.

Swamp-pheasant, 94.

Sweet-potato, 78.

Talegalla, 73, 97; cootjari, 149; rare, 208; numerous, 215; young, 252.

_Talgoro_, 188, 271.

Tallow, 37.

Tamarind, 21.

Tambo, town, 61.

_Tanysiptera_, 97.

Tattooing unknown, 137.

Thompson, river, 40; town, 56.

Thor’s hammer and the boomerang, 52.

Throwing-stick, 93.

Ticks, 266.

Tiger, marsupial, 101.

Tin, 44.

Torilla, its host and his family, 315, 322.

Treachery of natives, 44, 167, 289.

Tree-ferns, Victoria, 11; North Queensland, 151.

Trinity, idea and persons of a, 129, 283.

_Triodia irritans_, 43.

_Tristiana suaveolens_, 25.

Tobacco, 73; as currency, 75, 80, 106.

Tobola, 99; unbeaten, 217; preparation of, 230.

Toollah, opossum, 152.

Topinard, Dr., on the blacks, 129.

Torrens, Lake, 129.

_Totanus glottis_, 56.

Towdala, a bird, 155.

Townsville, 65 _passim_.

Turkey, brush, 73.

_Uromys_, 294.

Veera, a fig, 208.

Venereal and other diseases, 182.

Victoria, working-class influence, 8.

Vine-scrub, 26.

Vines, Queensland, 21.

_Vitiligo_, white spots, 99.

_Vitis climatidea_, 26.

Vondo, a root, 207.

Wader, 96.

Wallaby, 29; hunting, 91–94; rock, 209; feeding, 209.

Wardrobe, author’s, 108.

Water-hen, 27; iguana, 155; lilies, blue, 22.

Water, precious in bush, 39; bad in the interior, 42.

Waverley station, Gracemere, 62.

Weapons, 120, 127, 332 _seq._

Weaver-bird, 70, 96.

Western river, 44.

Westwood, 27; rats at, 44.

Windex station, hospitality at, 43.

Winter, 293.

Winton, 56, 59.

Witchcraft of strangers, 298.

Wives, native, 163.

Wizards, 279; producing rain, 282.

Women, seldom seen, 59; timidity of, 91; condition of, 100; old, at contests, 124; matrimonial changes, 127; beards, 131; personal appearance of, 132; child-birth, 134; ornamental scars improper, 137; occupation of, 160; greatest crime, 162; patience of, 192; destined from birth, 221; infanticide and cannibalism among, 254, 272; rough nurses, 257.

Wood exported from Queensland, 67.

Wood-swallow, 28.

_Xanthorrhæa_, 373.

_Xylomelum pyriforme_, 369.

Yabby, a new phalanger, 196.

Yamina, a monster, 201.

Yanki, a rare fig, 208; a man’s name, 209.

Yarra river, 5.

Yarri, tiger, 101, 117, 151, 266.

Yokkai, a native attendant, 214; word-portrait of, 217, 219, 235, 242, 243, 289; the only faithful black, 290; ascends Kassik the pack-horse, 290, 291; washes for cooking, 291; rewarded, 300; farewell to, 302.

Yopolo, 114.

York, Cape, 102.

ZOOLOGISTS, a family of, 323 _seq._

FINIS

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. P. 359, changed “West Australia, founded in 1839” to “West Australia, founded in 1829”. 2. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 3. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 5. Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=. 6. Denoted superscripts by a caret before a single superscript character.