2
CHAPTER VI
THE AUSTRALIAN CHILD 73
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
KANGAROO-HUNTING Frontispiece
FACING PAGE SNOWY MOUNTAINS NEAR THE SITE OF THE FEDERAL CAPITAL viii
THE BARRIER OF THE BLUE MOUNTAINS 9
THE GARDEN STREETS OF ADELAIDE 16
COLLINS STREET, MELBOURNE 25
THE TOWN HALL, SYDNEY 32
AUSTRALIAN NATIVES IN CAPTAIN COOK'S TIME 41
THE AUSTRALIAN FOREST AT NIGHT--"MOONING" OPOSSUMS 48
A SHEEP DROVER 57
A HUT IN THE BUSH 64
SURF-BATHING--SHOOTING THE BREAKERS 73
AUSTRALIAN CHILDREN RIDING TO SCHOOL 80
THE NOMAD OF THE AUSTRALIAN INTERIOR On the cover
Sketch-Map of Australia on pages vi and vii.
[Illustration: Map of Australia]
[Illustration: KOOKABURRAS. Page 59.]
[Illustration: SNOWY MOUNTAINS NEAR THE SITE OF THE FEDERAL CAPITAL. PAGE 25.]
CHAPTER I
ITS BEGINNING
A "Sleeping Beauty" land--The coming of the English--Early explorations--The resourceful Australian.
The fairy-story of the Sleeping Beauty might have been thought out by someone having Australia in his mind. She was the Sleeping Beauty among the lands of the earth--a great continent, delicately beautiful in her natural features, wonderfully rich in wealth of soil and of mine, left for many, many centuries hidden away from the life of civilization, finally to be wakened to happiness by the courage and daring of English sailors, who, though not Princes nor even knights in title, were as noble and as bold as any hero of a fairy-tale.
How Australia came to be in her curious isolated position in the very beginning is not quite clear. The story of some of the continents is told in their rocks almost as clearly as though written in books. But Australia is very, very old as a continent--much older