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university of Sydney is admirably situated, and is the first that was founded in the Southern Hemisphere. The city has also its art-gallery, and free public library, with over a hundred thousand volumes. It has also hospitals, churches, and many charitable institutions, with various schools. Sydney holds high rank as a British colonial city, and deservedly so, having special reason for pride in the complete system of her charitable and educational organizations, her noble public buildings, and the general character of her leading citizens. Land in the city and immediate suburbs is held at prices averaging as high as in Boston and New York, and the wealth of the people is represented to be very great in the aggregate.
Australia in its extreme breadth, between Shark's Bay on the west and Sandy Cape on the eastern shore, measures twenty-four hundred miles; and from north to south, – that is, from Cape York to Cape Atway, – it is probably over seventeen, hundred miles in extent. The occupied and improved portions of the country skirt the seacoast on the southern and eastern sides, which are covered with cities, towns, villages, and hamlets. The country occupied for sheep-runs and cattle-ranches is very sparsely inhabited. The reason for this is obvious, since the owner of a hundred thousand sheep requires between two and three hundred thousand acres to feed them properly. The relative proportion as to sheep and land is to allow two and a third acres to each animal.
The great dividing mountain-chain of Australia is near the coast-line in the south and east, averaging perhaps a hundred miles or more from the sea. Nearly all the gold which the land has produced has come from the valleys and hillsides of this range. The gold-diggings of New South Wales have proved to be very rich in some sections; but unlike those of Queensland and Victoria, the precious metal is here found mostly in alluvial deposits.
Many nationalities are represented in Australia and New Zealand, but the majority are English, Scotch, and Irish. The officials of New South Wales especially, look to England for favors which a political separation would cut them off from; among these are honorary titles and crown appointments of a paying nature. The constitution under which the colonies are living is such as to entitle them to be called democracies. In many respects the local government is more liberal and advanced than in England. Church and State, for instance, are here kept quite distinct from each other. As to the legislative power of the colonies, it is seldom interfered with by the home government.
A journey of about five hundred miles northward, either along the coast by steamer, or by railway inland, will take us to Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, which has a population of about fifty thousand. Until 1860 it was an appendage of New South Wales, but was in that year formed into an independent colony. The site of the city is a diversified surface, with the river whose name it bears winding gracefully through it, about twenty-four miles from its mouth; though in a direct line it would be but half that distance to where it empties into Moreton Bay, one of the largest on the coast of Australia. It was discovered by Captain Cook in 1770, and is formed by two long sandy islands running north and south, named respectively Standbroke and Moreton Islands, enclosing between them and the mainland a spacious sheet of water more than thirty miles long and six or eight wide, beautified by fertile islands.
On approaching Brisbane by sea one is puzzled at first to find where the mouth of the river can be, so completely is it hidden by the mangrove swamps which skirt the coast. A pleasant little watering-place is situated close at hand, named Sandgate, which is connected by hourly stages with the city. Several small rivers, all of which, however, are more or less navigable, empty into Moreton Bay, showing that the district inland hereabouts must be well watered. It is less than fifty years since Brisbane was opened to free settlers, having been previously only a penal station for English criminals; but of this taint resting upon the locality, the same may be said as of Sydney, or Hobart, in Tasmania, – scarcely a trace remains.
Queen Street is the principal thoroughfare, and is lined with handsome stores and fine edifices, there being no lack of architectural excellence in either public or private buildings. Like its sister cities, it has a botanical garden, the climate here favoring even a more extensive out-door display of tropical and delicate vegetation than at Melbourne or Sydney. An intelligent spirit of enterprise is evinced by the citizens of Brisbane, and everything goes to show that it is destined to become a populous and prosperous business centre. Its climate, especially, is considered almost perfect. Queensland is very rich in gold-producing mines, but it has also almost endless rolling plains covered with herbage suitable for the support of great herds and flocks, where some fourteen millions of sheep are now yielding meat and wool for export, and where some three millions of cattle are herded. The real greatness of the country is to be found in its agricultural capacity, which is yet to be developed. A very pleasant trip may be enjoyed up the Brisbane River and Bremer Creek, on which latter stream Ipswich is situated. It is twice as far by water as by land, but the sail is delightful, often affording charming views of the city from the river, while at the same time passing suburban residences, flourishing farms, banana-groves, cotton-fields, sugar-plantations, and orange-orchards.
Queensland is more than five times as large as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and it possesses an immense amount of undeveloped resources of the most promising character. The sun shines here with much more tropical ardor than in New South Wales or Victoria. The palm takes the place of the eucalyptus to a certain extent. The tulip-tree, rosewood, sandalwood, and satin-wood, which are not observed further south, greet us here. The aborigines are oftener met than elsewhere, as they prefer to live in a more temperate climate than is found southward, and to be where they can have the country more to themselves. They probably do not number over thirty thousand in all, and are slowly but surely decreasing before the advance of the whites. Even when first discovered they were but a handful of people, so to speak, scattered over an immense territory. They have still no distinct notion of the building of houses in which to live, or at least they adopt none, though they have the example of the whites constantly before them. They are very ugly, having black skins, flat noses, wide nostrils, and deep-sunken eyes wide apart. A bark covering, much ruder than anything which would content an American Indian, forms their only shelter, and they often burrow contentedly under the lee of an overhanging rock or hillside.
The Australian blacks have plenty of legends of the most barbaric character, but by no means void of poetical features. They believe that the earth was created by a being of supreme attributes, whom they call Nourelle, and who lives in the sky. They entertain the idea that because the sun gives heat it needs fuel, and that when it descends below the horizon it procures a fresh supply for its fires. The stars are supposed to be the dwellings of departed chiefs. The serpent is believed to contain the spirit of a real devil. To eat the kidney of an enemy, it is thought by them, imparts to the one who swallows it the strength of the dead man. Any number above five, these blacks express by saying, "it is as the leaves," not to be counted. The white man's locomotive is an imprisoned fire-devil, kept under control by water. The lightning is the angry expression of some enraged god.
The most peculiar weapon possessed by these aborigines is one which originated with them, and is known as the boomerang, – of which every one has heard, but which few have seen. It is a weapon whose characteristics have caused its name to pass into a synonym for anything which turns upon the person who uses it. It seems at first sight to be only a flat, crooked, or curved piece of polished wood, about twenty-eight inches long and three-quarters of an inch in thickness. There is nothing remarkable about this weapon until we see a native throw one. In doing this he carefully poises himself, makes a nice calculation as to distance, raises his arm above his head, and brings it down with a sort of swoop, swiftly launching the curved wood from his hand. At first the boomerang skims along near the ground, then rises four or five feet, but only to sink again, and again to rise. As we carefully watch its course, and suppose it just about to stop in its erratic career, and drop, spent, to the ground, it suddenly ceases its forward flight, and rapidly returns to the thrower. It is thought that no white man can exactly learn the trick of throwing this strange weapon, and certainly few ever care to attempt it a second time.
Ethnologists tell us that these blacks belong to the Ethiopian race, – they are the lowest probably of all the human family. The conviction forces itself upon us that they must be the remnant of some ancient people of whom we have no historic record. When Australia was first taken possession of by the whites, it seems to have been, if the term is in any instance admissible, a God-forsaken land; certainly it was the