CHAPTER VII
AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

Australia Saved by a Boy

A DAY or two before reaching Australia we passed through a dangerous bit of sea, called the Coral Sea, where, although we were a long way out of sight of land, there were solitary rocks and reefs just level with the top of the water and quite invisible at night except for the waves breaking on them.

It was on one of these reefs, about twenty-four miles from land, that Captain Cook got wrecked in his ship the Endeavour in 1778.

She was sailing gaily along when she suddenly ran on to a hidden rock and there stuck fast, rolling and grinding with a rather lumpy sea.

Sails were promptly hauled in, and some heavy but not necessary cargo was got up and thrown overboard in order to lighten her. But still she stuck there, and gradu­ally the rocks began to prise planks off her bottom.

She had, of course, a double skin, so that for a time it was only the outer hull that was thus badly holed; still, the inner skin was also pierced, and the water rose to a considerable depth in her hold in spite of three pumps that were set going to throw it, out again.

Six of her guns had to be dropped into the sea, and many other valuable things, till at last with an exception­ally high tide she was floated off the rock.

But everybody was afraid that she would then sink, as she was far from the land. The men were completely worn out with pumping. They could not keep at it for more than five or six minutes at a time; also she had not enough boats to take more than half the crew, so it was with most anxious and almost hopeless hearts that they made sail in their water-logged ship for the distant shore.

But one young midshipman, who was evidently a Boy Scout at heart, remembered having been told of a way of stopping a leak which he then and there suggested to the captain.

This was to pass a sail over the bow and lower it with ropes over each side so that it could be hauled along under the bottom of the ship till it came over the hole. Here the suction of the water sucked it hard against the ship's side and so stopped the water rushing in.

The experiment was a complete success, and thanks to this boy having Been Prepared for such an accident, and having kept his head in spite of the danger, at the same time knowing what to do, this ship was saved.

Indeed, Australia was saved to the British nation, because, although Australia had been discovered long before by Spanish and Dutch explorers, Captain Cook was the first to examine it seriously and to annex it in the name of his country. Had he not done it on this occasion, other nations would probably have stepped in and taken it.

How Australia Grew

Before Captain Cook's visit, another great English sea rover had explored over a thousand miles of Australian coast in 1688, and that was Captain William Dampier; and he carne to it again some ten years later in H.M.S. Roebuck.

it was not till seventy years after him that Captain Cook came along from South America through the Pacific Islands to New Zealand, and then on to the coast of what are now New South Wales and Queensland.

He was soon followed by other British explorers who opened up South and West Australia and Tasmania. They brought a good many live sheep with which were started those sheep farms which have since made the country so rich through its wool and preserved mutton.

At first Australia was thought to be a good place to which to send convicts, instead of keeping them in prisons at home, but soon so many people began to go out there to farm on their own account that the sending out, or transportation, of bad characters was stopped.

It proved such a rich country for farming and for minerals, and so healthy for Europeans, that it went ahead by leaps and bounds, and now within a hundred years it has already got a population of four and a half millions of British people; and it sends to England every year close on forty million pounds' worth of goods.

Australia is made up of six great States—Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania,.

The Australians as Soldiers

Australia has its own Army and Navy, in which every boy and man have to serve.

The loyalty of Australians to the Old Country is so great that they have sent strong contingents of soldiers at different times to help us in our wars in other parts of the world.

In 1885 a fine body of men came from New South Wales to take part in the war in the Sudan (Egypt); and in the South African War in 1899-1901 all the Australian States sent fully equipped forces to uphold the flag in South Africa.

A number of them came to our relief in Mafeking, and the column which I had in the Transvaal after the siege was made up of Australians, Canadians, and South Africans.

And they were a fine lot of fellows; no tenderfoots there! They had lived in the bush and backwoods. Every man was a true scout; he knew how to find his way by day or night in a strange country; he knew how to hide himself from an enemy, how to read tracks, how to cook his food and look after his horse.    Of course he could ride, shoot, and swim; and if one of them got wounded or injured the others were not going to leave hum behind, no matter how great the danger might be to themselves.

I remember one party of them getting surrounded by Boers in bad bushy and rocky country, and though it looked like all of them getting shot down—as all their horses were—they stuck it out gallantly and got away with comparatively slight loss in the end.

The boys of Australia are all obliged to serve as cadets, and to learn shooting and drill; and being also generally good scouts and swimmers, they will be as good as their fathers have been for the defence of their own country or for helping our Empire should she ever need it.

Queensland

At daybreak we sighted Australia, a flat-topped bluff rising above the horizon. By breakfast-time we were up to it, a thickly wooded island lying off the wide shallow mouth of the river up which we had to go to reach Brisbane.

A very pretty trip it was as the river wound its way through mangrove swamps and wooded hills with occasional grass farm.

Then we began to pass factories, chiefly great meat freezing establishments, shipping wharves, and suburbs, till we were actually steaming through the city itself right up to our landing-stage. But all this took several hours to do.

My first step on landing was to go off under charge of the Scout Council to review the Boy Scouts of Queens­land on some bush-covered grounds near the city.

They were a fine lot of boys, all first or second-class Scouts and wearing many proficiency badges; and in their demonstrations they very soon showed me that they were jolly good at their work. First-aid was particularly good, and so were their bridge and but building.

And they know how to make use of their Scout knowledge when needed. Here is a case that happened only recently.

In a train running on the main line the alarm cord was pulled; brakes were applied, and the train stopped. A poor woman distracted with grief then sent a message down the train to ask whether there was a doctor on board as her baby was in violent convulsions and likely to die.

There was not a doctor on the train, but there was a Boy Scout. I don't think that most Boy Scouts would have known what to do in this case, but fortunately this Scout did.

It shows you how necessary it is to Be Prepared for any possible kind of trouble, and not only for the ordinary ones. Our young Scout ran to the engine and got from the driver a bucket of hot water, and taking the baby he plunged it in and then massaged and rubbed it till it very quickly recovered.

I hope he tried the water first with his hand, otherwise he might have accidentally boiled the baby.

I heard of a nurse who was always very careful to see that the water was the right heat for the baby, and this is how she did it—you might tell the secret to your mother if she does not know it. She put the baby into

the water and if he yelled and turned blue she knew the water was too cold, and if he yelled and turned red it showed the water was too hot! Some nurses are so clever.

A Bushman

High up on the hillside, from among the gum trees, I have been looking out over the woods and plains of Queensland. From over the top of the ridge the last rays of the setting sun lit up the tree-tops and upper stems with a rich yellow light, while I was in the deep cool shadows.

After being at sea, and in foreign lands and islands, it was very satisfying to be back on a great continent rich in farms and sunshine, and belonging to our own British race.

An Australian Bushman.

Presently there came riding by, on a roughly groomed, but well-bred, wiry-looking horse, a man so bronzed with sun and weather as to look almost a black man. But a white man he was, free and happy and healthy, with his pack of mongrel dogs around him, living the life of the open bush; and I felt the longing to do the same.

These bushmen are fine, hefty fellows, and, as they showed themselves in the South African War, ready to serve their country at any cost to themselves.

On one occasion last year a lot of townies in Brisbane were persuaded to go on strike about nothing by a few fellows who had the gift of talking.

The townies listened and believed every word; instead of doing the manly thing of hearing the other side of the question and making up their own minds for themselves, they let these agitators make up their minds for them. They went on strike, and as the police and military forces were weak, they began to get rowdy.

But the Governor knew his men. He sent word round the country that he wanted a few good loyal men to help him, and the bushmen came pouring in from all parts. They brought all their own food and equipment along with them, and they did not come the roundabout way of the roads, but came straight across country without a moment's delay, and they settled the trouble in very quick time.

Queensland Scouts

In Queensland there are about 2500 Boy Scouts, and besides those in Brisbane I saw some at Ipswich, at Warwick, at Toowoomba, and Stanthorpe.

Here and there, as one journeyed through the country, one met with the huge farm waggons pulled by their teams of sixteen oxen along the rough tracks of the back bush, and the stock-riders swinging along on their hardy horses handling a mob of cattle with their stock whips as a huntsman moves his pack of hounds at home.

I just envied them and felt that I would gladly come and be one, too, in this great free country (for Queensland is five and a half times the size of Great Britain) in its eternal sunshine and its richness in crops and cattle, fruit and gold.

The only thing that it wants is more men to take up the vacant spaces.

Presenting King's Flag to the 1st Gympie (Queensland) Troop

New South Wales—What Sydney is Like

I had long heard of the Sydney Heads. Ever since I was a boy I wanted to see the Sydney Heads; and now I have seen them.

They are two great bluffs or steep cliffs between which lies the entrance to Sydney Harbour.

As you come to them from the seaward, you see a long line of cliffs which have an opening at this point in which there is apparently an ordinary small bay with cliffs all round it. That was what Captain Cook thought of it when he first sailed up the coast of Australia.

He sailed past it, just as Sir Francis Drake sailed past the Golden Gate of San Francisco Bay, without knowing that it was the entrance to a great natural harbour.

And, like Drake, Captain Cook landed at another bay close by; this he named Botany Bay because of the wonderful variety of plants which grew there.

At Botany Bay the first British settlement was made, and a convict prison established. But Captain Phillip, who had charge of this, soon discovered the splendid port which lay close by. He found that if you sailed boldly into the bay between the bluffs it ran off into two creeks hidden behind the cliffs, and these creeks ran for some miles inland with many small creeks leading from them among the low wooded hills around, and all of deep clear sea water.

So on this beautiful natural harbour the new settlement was started, and was named Sydney after Lord Sydney, who was at that time Secretary of State for the Colonies in England.

Sydney is now a great city of 600,000 British inhabitants, and is spread over much more ground than most cities of that population, so that, although the business part of it is much like that of any other modern town with its streets and public buildings, the part where people have their homes is spread about on beautiful wooded hills, or along the shores of endless pretty creeks which make it a delightful place to live in; nowhere crowded and everywhere pretty.

If you started in a boat to row round the harbour and rowed for twenty miles in a day, it would take you a week to get round, and yet you would never be more than six miles away from the centre!

When you walk through the town you are continually surprised by the sight of ships' masts or funnels across the end of the street; you turn off in a different direction and you find the same thing again; creeks and wharves everywhere, and great ocean-going steamers or men­of-war anchored in deep water close up to the houses.

Such is Sydney.

The Scouts of New South Wales

And what a place for scouting! All around the town and even in it are the wooded hills and thick bush; while the harbour with its islands and creeks and in­numerable boats gives the finest field for sea scouting that I have ever seen. Lucky beggars those Sydney boys!

When I went to see them, they did not parade on a flat open lawn and march past like imitation soldiers, but they were camped in the scrub among the rocky hills, each patrol in its own little spot very much hidden from view.

They had rigged up crow's nests of poles from which orders could be signalled to the different tents. Also they had put up a mast for signalling with flags to ships in the harbour in addition to a wireless telegraphy in­stallation with which they could talk with. the men-of­-war or with their own headquarters in the town,.

A Despatch Ride

Perhaps the most striking party among them was a troop of nearly one hundred mounted Scouts from Cootamundra. They were a fine tough-looking lot, mounted on their own ponies; and they had ridden in 250 miles to see me.

Some of them rode ahead of the rest at fast pace, bringing me a letter of welcome, and they covered the 250 miles in 24 hours 19 minutes, riding by night as well as by day. A fine performance even if done by good cavalry.

I have never seen better fellows for making cavalry soldiers than the Cootamundra Troop, unless it was the troop of mounted Boy Scouts attached to Strathcona's Horse at Winnipeg.

Mounted Scouts from Cootamundra (New South Wales)

A Shark Tragedy

In Sydney Harbour, one of the many little islands is called Shark Island. It is here that the first convict settlement was made, because it did not need very much watching by guards, since it was already guarded by sharks.

If a man were to attempt to swim to the mainland the chances of his getting there were very small, for although the distance was only a short one, the sharks were always ready on the look-out.

A short time ago some men were bathing in a creek far away up at the end of the harbour, when suddenly one of them screamed out

"Look out, a shark has got me."

The other man who was in the water saw the tail of the fish moving through the water and he swam as hard as he could to the shore.

A third man who was on shore at the time, seeing the danger of his friend, at once plunged in bravely to his rescue, although not a very good swimmer himself. He succeeded in getting hold of the man, who was then sinking. The second man, who had reached the shore, seeing his difficulty, also went in again at once to his assistance, and between them they frightened the shark away and brought their companion ashore. But he died almost immediately. He had been ripped open by the monster.

Although -there are many sharks in the deeper parts of the harbour, they very seldom come into the shallower creeks; and also, although there are plenty of them along the coast of Australia, they don't come in among the breaking waves.

People therefore do a great deal of bathing in the shallow creeks and in the surf on the coast, and almost every Australian boy is a good swimmer; he would be thought a bit of an ass by the others if he were not. They swim a good deal with the dog stroke, especially while learning.

Most Australian boys are also good marksmen with the rifle, and most of them can ride. So they are pretty useful fellows all round.

Tiger the Tracker

While in New South Wales I heard from Mr. Vincent Dowling, an old bush hand, some exciting experiences of life in the bush.

The native blacks, of whom there are only a few thousand left now, are marvellous trackers, and here is an instance which happened not long ago.

A policeman in an up-country township went to arrest a man who was " wanted " there, but he went unarmed, and the man covered him with his revolver at some distance, retreated into some thick bush and made good his escape.

But the policeman at once got his arms, and with a black tracker, of whom the police kept several for tracking cattle thieves, he started in pursuit.

After going over fairly easy ground for ten or twelve miles, they got into a dry, stony district, and here the runaway, knowing that he would be tracked., thought he would get a chance of escaping his pursuers, so he jumped from rock to rock, leaving scarcely anything of a foot­mark to show where he had been.

But a nail scratch here, a grain or two of rock freshly broken there, a few rocks leading at easy bounds from one to the other, gave the tracker his line. Then the tracks led into a thick patch of scrub in which there was a fencers' camp.

Tiger—for that was the tracker's name—at once ran right round the clump examining all footmarks leading out of it, and then reported to the policeman that either the man was still in there or he had gone out wearing another pair of boots.

Then he made a wider circle at a good distance outside the first circle. Here he found footmarks going away from the clump, while the foot-tracks crossed by the inner circle had shown only some tracks walking into the clump.

So Tiger at once guessed that the man had changed his boots in the camp and had then walked out backwards for a short distance in order to deceive any trackers, and, when tired of that, he had turned round and walked in his right direction.

Very soon the fugitive got tired of wearing the strange boots, and, evidently hoping that he had successfully dodged his pursuers, he had thrown them away and put on his own again.

At last they came to a river. This was one hundred miles from where they started. The foot-tracks led straight down into the water, so it looked as if the man had deliberately walked right in and had swum across. So Tiger swam across and carefully examined the far bank to see where his man had come out.

He had not come out—as Tiger fully expected.

So back Tiger came and soon found footmarks still left in the mud close to the near bank, which showed that the runaway, instead of swimming across the river, had turned alongside the bank and had walked in the water for a long way downstream; in fact, Tiger followed the tracks for three miles in the water and then they turned up on to a bush path along which a herd of cattle had recently passed.

It was evident that the man had seen this herd going along and thought that if lie walked ahead of it the hoof­-marks would tread out his own footmarks, and so they did.

But the cattle could not tell which way the man wanted to go, and presently they turned off his line and went down to the river to drink. Tiger had followed them all along, and at the point where the cattle turned the man's footmarks were again to be seen going straight ahead.

Then they found the tracks were getting very fresh, any earth kicked up by them was still damper than the sun­-heated grains of the surface, and the edges of the tracks were sharp, not having had time to get dry and rounded off by sun or wind.

So the pair of them went along very cautiously, keeping a sharp look-out. It was lucky they did so, for they suddenly came on the man hiding behind a bush with his pistol aiming at them. But the policeman was quicker than he, and before he could get his aim true the rifle rang out and the outlaw fell dead in his tracks.

Mr. Dowling tells also another story of how his native tracker followed up the trail of a white man who had got lost in waterless country till they found his dead body lying under a bush where apparently he had died of thirst.

Had the poor fellow ever learnt, as Boy Scouts do, about plants, he would have known that this very bush under which he died had water in at which might have quenched his thirst and so saved him.

It was a "needle-bush." It has long thin yellow roots which, if cut into lengths of about two feet and stood up in a billy-can, let out a lot of watery juice which would keep a man alive for some time.

Also, although he had matches on him, he had not lit a smoke fire, which would probably have attracted the searchers who were out looking for him.

These are things that every Scout should remember.

Farmer Scouts

In New South Wales there is a town called Richmond. Whenever I hear of a Richmond I want to go there because I have already visited so many. Richmond in Yorkshire; Richmond in Surrey; Richmond in Virginia, America; Richmond in Cape Colony, South Africa; Richmond in Natal, South Africa.

So I went to Richmond, New South Wales, and here I found a most interesting Farm School something like our Scouts' Farm at Buckhurst Place, but on a much finer and bigger scale. Such a good one at is that pupils were there from England and South Africa as well as from all parts of Australia—coming many thousands of miles to get its splendid training.

They learn all the different kinds of farming on the most up-to-date lines, so that they can then go out, three or four of them together in partnership, take up a farm, and work at so as to make at pay.

They learn, of course, all about ploughing and sowing and harvesting their crops, stock rearing, dairying, fruit farming and preserving their fruits, poultry raising, and ostrich breeding.

This, except the last, is very much what they would learn in England, but a farmer, however good he may be at these things, is not likely to succeed in those out-of-the­-way farms abroad unless he can also do his own repairs to waggons, ploughs, and harness, make his own horse clothing, shoe his horses, make his own beehives, drive his own motor-thrashing machines or pumps, and do all sorts of jobs which. the farmer in this country would never think of touching.

So all these farmer-students go through a regular course of training in workshops very much as our Farm Scouts do at Buckhurst, and they come out real handy men at the finish.

Nor do they forget their duty to their country also, for the few of them who cannot already ride a horse learn at there, and also they all learn how to judge distance, and to shoot, and how to drill, so that in case they should ever have to turn out to defend their bans and homes against an enemy they will be quite able to do so.

Empire Day

Empire Day, May 24th, is a great day in Australia and in New Zealand.

Like the Canadians, the people of these dominions show much more enthusiasm for our great Empire than we do at home. I dare say we are just as loyal and patriotic in the Old Country, but we are more sleepy and we don't show at in the same spirited way that our brothers across the sea do.

The statue of Queen Victoria, which stands in every city, is decorated, the citizens hold meetings at which addresses are given, the troops and the cadets and Boy Scouts hold big parades, and the school children have a holiday to go and see them.

It is one of the sights which show one more than any­thing else how mighty is our Empire and how closely bound together with the great bond of loyalty.

To have come all this distance across the seas to the other side of the world, and there to find thousands of miles of British country with British farms and homes and factories and cities, and British people, and boys and children in their thousands just as British as ourselves, but who have never seen Great Britain, then it is that one realises how great is the brotherhood to which we belong, and how we ought, each one of us, to do all in our power to keep that brotherhood together.

"Painting the Town Red"

I was once at an examination where an Irish boy was being questioned. The examiner on hearing his name and birthplace said

"Oh, you are an Irishman! Now, can you tell me of any great general who was an Irishman?"

The boy instantly replied, as Irishmen do, with another question: "Can you tell me any great general who was not an Irishman, sir?" Then he gave a list showing that most of our generals, past and present, were Irishmen.

So the examiner said

"Very good. I suppose now you think that Irishmen are the best men in the world?"

"No," replied the boy, "they are not; but they could be if they liked."

"Why?"

"Because they are fools. They drink too much whisky."

Well, that has been the same fault with others besides Irishmen. Scotsmen, English, and Welsh have all been fools in the same way, and their example has been followed by their brothers oversea. Fortunately they are beginning to realise it, and instead of flinging away their hard-earned money in making fools and beasts of themselves, they are now saving it and making happy homes and prosperous lives for themselves.

Here in Australia it was the regular thing for a man who had been away up-country for months sheep shearing or fencing to come back into town and to hand over all his wages, sometimes £90 or £100, to the proprietor of a public-house on the understanding that he was to let him get drunk and to keep him drunk until that amount of money had been spent.

And it used to be the same among the cowboys and lumbermen in the West of America and Canada. They used to come in after a spell of work on the prairie or in the backwoods and "paint the town red," as they called it.

Those days are now over. Men are not now such fools; they work hard, but they keep their money when they have made it, and set themselves up in happy homes and start themselves in prosperous lines of business.

There are, of course, a few wasters who still indulge in making beasts of themselves—for that is what it is.

I can sympathise with a man getting drunk in some of our slums in Britain, where he prefers the brightness and warmth of a gin-palace to the squalid misery of the dirty den he has to inhabit. But the man in a sunny country where there is plenty of work and good pay is no better than a beast to go and throw it all away in drunken orgies.

A young fellow generally takes to drink much as he does to smoking—and that is because he is a coward.

He thinks it looks fine and manlike among other boys to show off how he can hang about a bar and smoke and drink and spit and swear. In doing these he thinks he is no end of a fine fellow—when really he is a silly ass.

You can never trust a man who drinks, because in nine cases out of ten he is a coward and won't stick to you in a tight place, and with his brain fuddled and his strength weakened by it he is of no use for any kind of work or position of trust.

A bar-loafer is about as great a rotter as you can find anywhere.

A Shipwreck

No sooner had we passed out between "The Heads" from Sydney Harbour on our voyage to New Zealand than our gallant ship began to "tuck her nose into it" as we faced a big sea and a strong wind against us.

This remained our amusement for the next three days, our ship heaving and shoving into the waves and being washed with spray from stem to stern.

At length, on the fifth day out, we sighted and passed a group of steep, rocky islands called the "Three Kings," a nasty, dangerous place with reefs and outlying rocks all round it. Here, among others, was wrecked the steamship Elingamite a few years ago.

A number of the people on board had never been brought up as Scouts and were in no way prepared for a shipwreck; a panic seized them when, in a dense fog, the vessel suddenly crashed on to a rock and began to sink. Many lost their heads and jumped overboard, while others made a rush for the boats and scrambled in in such numbers as to swamp them while they were being launched. Most of these people were drowned.

Those who kept their wits about them and acted coolly under the captain's directions were saved. They got out the ship's rafts and three boats, and putting the women and children into these they got safely ashore on to the rocks. And here they stayed for three days while one of the boats made its way over to the mainland of New Zealand to get help.

In the meantime, the poor creatures on the rocks suffered terrible privations from cold and hunger. A little rain water was found in some hollows in the rocks, and there were a few apples which floated up from the ship as she sank; but there was no regular food and no dry clothes for them.

At last someone (could there have been a Scout there?) thought of a way of catching fish, and made a fishing-line out of some of the women's stay-laces with hooks made from hairpins and baited with bits of red flannel. In this way they managed to get enough food to keep them alive, though they had to eat it raw as they had no means of making a fire.

This rough sketch of New Zealand shows you some of the places I visited.

Who Discovered New Zealand?

It is not exactly known who was the first white man to discover and visit New Zealand, but the Maoris have a story that a ship came there before 1740, but they could not say what country it belonged to, nor could anyone else, for the very good reason that the Maoris captured the crew and ate them, every one. Tasman, the great sea scout, sailed along part of the coast, but did not land.

It was not till Captain Cook came in 1768 that any real survey of the island took place. He came in a small sailing ship across these very stormy seas, on two different expeditions, to explore and chart the coasts and to get on friendly terms with the natives.

But at the very time that Captain Cook was there making friends with the Maoris, a party of explorers came from France and tried to gain a footing at the Bay of Islands. For a time they got on pretty well with the natives, but one day there was a quarrel and the whole party were massacred and eaten.

But Captain Cook managed things in a different way and got the name among the natives for absolute fair play and justice and fearlessness.

On more than one occasion he had one of his own seamen flogged for cheating a native; he insisted on giving fair payment for everything that was taken from the inhabitants. In this way he established a friendship among them towards the British, so that later on settlers came out from home and were allowed to start the colony which has since grown to be one of the happiest and most promising of our Overseas Dominions.

How New Zealand was Won in a Race

It was not till 1840 that the British Government finally made treaty with the natives, who handed New Zealand over to the British.

A few months later there arrived a French man-of-war to seize the country for France, but finding the British Union Jack already flying at the Bay of Islands, which was at that time the chief port of the northern part of New Zealand, she sailed off to the southern part.

But the British, in order to admit of no mistake, sent off a fast-sailing sloop, the Britomarte, which reached Akaron—the port in South Island—just a few hours before the French ship, and had the flag flying ready for her when she came. So New Zealand remained British.

And later on we had to fight against the Maoris, both in 1840-1847 and again in 1860-1870.

The Maoris had always been having wars among them­selves, and were therefore fine, brave warriors, and very difficult to overcome, but in the end, when peace came, both sides were all the better friends because each had learnt to admire the other as brave, strong, and deter­mined.

It has been just the same with us in other parts of the world; in India where we fought the Sikhs, in Africa where we fought the Zulus, in Egypt where we fought the Sudanese, in South Africa where we fought the Boers, we have all become the better friends for it.

Why the Maoris held up the White Flag

The Maoris seemed to like fighting for fighting's sake, and one man told me a story of how in one fight the British had surrounded a party of the enemy on a hill and they took care to guard each spring and stream so that the natives could not get any water.

After a siege of two days the Maoris sent down a messenger under a white flag to say that perhaps the British were not aware of it, but they were holding the only supplies from which the Maoris could get water; and if they could not have water they could not go on fighting. They seemed to look upon fighting as a kind of game.

On another occasion I was told that in the middle of a battle the Maoris began to run out of ammunition, so they held up a white flag and sent to ask the British whether they could lend them some to go on with!

I won't promise that this is a true story, but it is what I was told. The Maoris have now become civilised and wear European clothes and are fine big people. There are about 45,000 of them, and they are loyal subjects of the King.

New Zealand is shaped like the leg and foot of a man kicking in the air—the football being the island of New Caledonia.

New Zealand is formed of two great islands, the foot is North Island and the leg South Island. The whole dominion is roughly about the size of Great Britain, but it has only one million inhabitants at present instead of the forty-five millions in Great Britain.

Auckland

After our four days of banging through head winds and heavy seas from Australia., it was a relief to find ourselves early one morning steaming along in calm water. We were in the Hauraki Gulf, North Island, at the head of which lies Auckland, the chief port of New Zealand.

As you run up the Gulf, Auckland itself is not visible, because in front of it there rises out of the sea a great conical mountain, an extinct volcano, which completely hides it.

Rounding this, our ship turns sharply into a wide creek which forms the fine harbour of Auckland, full of shipping, tugs, and ferry-boats. The business and in­dustrial part of the city is not so very large, but the suburbs, where people live, extend for miles over the wooded hills on both sides of the water.

On the wharf was drawn up a guard of honour with the Chief Scout of New Zealand, Lieutenant-Colonel Cossgrove, V.D., waiting to receive me. It was my first sight of New Zealand Scouts, and a fine, clean-looking, well-set-up lot they looked; and dressed and looking exactly like their brother Scouts at the opposite side of the world.

The Boys of New Zealand

In the afternoon I attended a review of the Girl Scouts, who are, the same as our Girl Guides at home, and doing the same good work of learning first-aid and how to nurse sick and wounded people.

Then there was the parade of the Cadets and the Boy Scouts for inspection by His Excellency Lord Islington, the Governor-General of New Zealand.

In this country every boy has to be a Cadet. From twelve to fourteen, while at school, he is a "Junior Cadet" and wears a smart uniform with blue jersey and shorts with a Scottish cap.

After he leaves the secondary school, or becomes four­teen, he has to join the Senior Cadets. They are dressed in a different uniform of khaki; and when they have learnt musketry and drill they are transferred to the Territorial Army, which is very much like ours at home, only that every man in the country takes his turn of service in it,

In New Zealand they are far better prepared to defend their homes and their wives and children than we are in Britain, and no man shirks his duty like a good many do at home.

I shall not easily forget my first view of the New Zealand boys; it was a fine sight, for 3000 Cadets and 400 Boy Scouts were drawn up in a sort of natural arena in the park on the heights overlooking Auckland, and 10,000 spectators were on the surrounding slopes. With bands playing and Colours flying they made a brave show, and they seemed to be as good as they looked.

Winners of the King's Flag

The Boy Scouts had a very large number of badges of efficiency, and one of the Auckland troops, the 1st Devonport, were the winners of the King's Flag, having twenty-three King's Scouts in their ranks

That beats anything in England!

And they only won it after a close race with other troops; and the examination was a tough and strict one. Lord Islington presented the King's Flag, with a very encouraging speech, to the winners.

I had afterwards the honour of pinning Silver Crosses on the breasts of three Auckland Scouts for different acts of gallantry in saving life at the risk of their own.

So you see the New Zealand Scouts are not behind others in their efficiency.

And you should hear their "Haka," that is the New Zealand edition of the "Eengonyama" salute.

A leader starts the chant, they all smack their thighs and stamp in time and shout their salutation in Maori words, all exactly together, and the effect is fine. Here are the instructions issued for doing it before me:

Haka-Leader: "E rangatira ia." Scouts: "Kei to rahi atu ia. I to Taniwha, I to Taniwha, Hi, Hi. Ha." When the General reaches the point at which the official Scout reception takes place, the command "Staves down" will be given. A leader, or Assistant Scout­master, will give the signal for the haka to commence by striking the palms of his hands on the front part of his thighs, at the same time stamping in unison with his left foot. All follow his example, and as soon as he sees and hears that all have picked up the time, he calls out: "Eh . . . ranga-to-rah . . . ee yah." Then all join in with " Kai tay raahee ah too . . . ee yah." When they come to "ee tay Tan-ee fah" they raise their hands level with their shoulders, palms down, and swing them to the left and right alternately, keeping time to the words thus: "Ee-tay " (hands swing to the left front), "Tan­ee-fah " (swing to right front), "Ee tay " (again to left), "Tan-ee-fah"  (again to right), "Hee"    (again left,) "Hee" (again right), "H-a-a-a!!!" (hands raised over head at full extent of arms, eyes directed towards officer, and tongues protruded towards the opposite side). The foot should keep time to all the movements during the haka. When it is finished, the order "Staves up" will be given, and Scouts will stand at the order.

The Cadets

Among the Cadets I found that the Scouts had made a good name for themselves, especially as nearly all the sergeants and corporals in the Cadets are fellows who have been Scouts.

The officers find that a Scout on joining the Cadets does not have to be taught discipline and obedience to orders, he knows all that, and can be trusted to carry out his duty without anybody watching him to see that he does it. Also he can keep other fellows in order, he can show them in camp how to cook their food and how to make themselves comfortable, he can signal and can render first-aid, and generally knows how to shoot, to act as guide, or to run or ride with despatches.

Besides being smart and well-set-up in appearance, he has not made himself sickly and nervous with cigarette­ sucking; so naturally the officers try to get hold of Scouts to make them non­commissioned officers of the Cadets. Among the Cadets I saw some very fine companies, and among the best was one composed of Maori boys; they are dark red in colour, and big, strongly made, hefty fellows who with their weight and size ought to knock spots off any tug-of-war team of the same age.

Junior Cadet	Senior Cadet

North Island.

From Auckland we travelled by train through North Island down to Wellington at its southern end. We went through hills and mountains, among beautiful bits of forest with snowy peaks in the background, then out among open downs and moorland with frequent farms and small townships.

But though the country looked strange, the people were all British, and at many of the stations Boy Scouts were drawn up for my inspection, all looking exactly the same as Scouts at home and talking our tongue, although they are bang at the opposite side of the world.

In among these mountains, though I had not time to go and see them, lie some of the wonders of the world in the shape of great natural fountains of boiling hot water called "geysers," and marvellous rocks and stalactites. Wellington

It is said that you can tell a Wellington man in any part of the world, because when he approaches a street corner he puts up his hand to hold his hat on. This is from force of habit, because in Wellington there is nearly always a high wind blowing.

Well, it was not blowing when I was there, and I found Wellington a charming town, fine streets and public buildings and wharves on the flat fronting a magnificent bay, while steep hills rise up close behind it on which are the villas and cottages of the citizens with their pretty gardens and shady verandahs and beautiful view.

Here again I attended a parade of Scouts and Cadets (600 Scouts and 2000 Cadets), and I presented to the Scouts the flag of friendship which had been sent out by the Wellington Troop in London.

A Brave Bugler

Near Wellington, at a place called Hutt, a gallant act was done by a boy in the fighting against the Maoris in 1865.

A force of British troops was camped here, and owing to the crafty and plucky nature of the enemy an extra strict watch was kept by the sentries at night lest they should attempt to rush the camp when the men were sleeping.

On thus particular night Bugler Allen of the 58th (now the Northampton Regiment) could not rest. I don't know whether he had the Scout's ability to smell an enemy and could scent him in the breeze, but at any rate he was awake at the dangerous part of the night, that is, just before dawn, when an enemy is most likely to make his attack, and he became an additional watcher with the regular sentries.

Just as light was beginning to come on through the mist of the night, there was a sudden rush and scurry through the long grass, and one of the sentries near the boy was clubbed to the ground before he could utter a sound.

This opened a way for the Maoris to sweep silently into the camp and kill the men in their sleep, but they had not reckoned on the boy. In an instant his bugle went to his lips and the "Alarm" suddenly blared out all over the camp.

A warrior rushed at him with an axe which the boy dodged as it fell, and it cut deep into his arm; but he continued to sound the call to the men till another blow stretched him senseless and dying on the ground. But he had done his duty; he had saved the camp, for the soldiers sleeping on their rifles sprang up and poured a rapid fire into their foes, and drove them off with heavy loss.

Strange Fowls and Fishes

The Wellington Scouts presented me with pieces of eggshell of the Moa which they had found. The Moa was a huge kind of ostrich in former days in New Zealand, and, judging from the size of its bones which are some­times found, it must have stood over twelve feet high. But it has long since died off.

Bits of its eggs are often found by sharp-eyed Scouts. Another curious bird which has now disappeared was the Kiwi. He was a smaller bird, covered with hairy kind of feathers, having a long bill but no wings; so he could not escape from animals like wild dogs, etc., who liked having a bird for supper, and so he died out.

Then there is the Kea. He is a kind of parrot, brown in colour, and having a most unpleasant appetite for kidneys. He will attack a sheep when grazing, sit on his back, tear away the wool, and then dig a hole into the back until he can pick out the kidneys with his strong, curved beak. Of course it is agony to the poor sheep and causes his death.

I read of a silly Kea trying the same game on a mule. He had forgotten that a mule is not a sheep. The mule, when he felt the first peck at his back, started kicking. The Kea dug his claws and beak into the mule's back and hung on for all he was worth.

The mule, finding that kicking was no good, suddenly threw himself down and rolled over, and thus squashed the Kea. That Kea was never much good afterward at least as a Kea; but his friends had seen his fate and they never tried eating a mule's kidneys again—pre­tended they did not care for them.

But they stuck to sheep because the poor sheep if he tried rolling would only get on to his back, and there he would stick, unable to right himself, and the Kea could then get at his kidneys through his stomach.

Pelorus Jack

From Wellington you cross the straits between North and South Islands, called Cook's Straits after the gallant captain who first explored them.

In a narrow channel leading from the main straits towards Nelson lives "Pelorus Jack." He is a small whale and for thirty years he has been there. I did not see him as this channel did not come in our route, but many people told me all about him.

When a ship comes steaming through this channel, out comes Jack, swimming along the surface, till he gets to the bow of the ship, and there he swims, sometimes in front, sometimes alongside, even rubbing and scratching himself against the vessel, till she is through the strait, and he then turns off with a "good-bye" flick of his tail and goes back to his lair to await the next one.

An Act of Parliament has been passed specially to prevent him from being destroyed.

Lyttelton and Christchurch

After steaming up a loch with high hills on either side of it, our steamer landed us on the quay at Lyttelton, a charming little port with its houses tucked away in a ravine in the hills. Here were more Scouts to receive me, and to put me into the train for Christchurch a few miles distant.

The country as we ran through it, with its fields and hedges, farms, woods, and villages, was exactly like England, and so was Christchurch when we got there; just an English country town, and with English people in it. Here again was a splendid parade of over 3000 Cadets and Scouts for me to look at and to talk to.

From Christchurch we ran by train to Dunedin, stopping at many places on the way to see Scouts, Cadets, and Girl Guides drawn up for inspection; all of them efficient and smart and doing good work.

And the country all the way was full of prosperous looking farms with their cattle and horses and flocks of sheep and large tracts of arable lands with their trim hedges and tall trees.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Gorse and broom grew everywhere—almost too much so; they were originally brought here from home, but have spread at such a rate as to have become a nuisance, as have also the blackberry and brier-rose brambles.

In fact, most things, whether plants or animals, which have been brought in here, do far better than in the Old Country.

Someone introduced some blackbirds and thrushes to make song birds; there are such a lot of them now that they destroy the fruit crops and have to be got rid of. Trout have increased so much in some of the rivers and lakes that they have eaten down all the feeding weed and are now getting diseased.

Rabbits have become a perfect plague, and have to be poisoned or trapped by the thousand to save the crops and bush.

Stoats were imported to kill them, but these have now increased at such a rate as to be a nuisance in their turn.   Even Boy Scouts, having been introduced from the Old Country, have increased and Oh, well, I won't talk about them as I don't think they have become a nuisance yet; at any rate I have not heard of people shooting or poisoning them so far.

When you are in Dunedin you might just as well be in Scotland. This beautiful city stands on the shore of a long loch, which reminded me at once of the Clyde on a small scale, with downs and moors and upland farms on either side of it.

Tasmania

I have sailed in a good many fine ships in the course of this journey, but the best one of all of them was the Union steamship Maunganui, in which we sailed from New Zealand to Tasmania. She is one of the big fleet of fine steamers belonging to Australia which are employed entirely in running between New Zealand and Australian ports.

It is a three days' voyage, just a thousand miles, from the Bluff in South New Zealand to Hobart in the south of Tasmania; and a nice old dusting we got as we came across with a big sea and a head wind against us.

But in the evening of the third day we saw right ahead of us some jagged headlands and needle-rocks outlined against the setting sun, and we knew that the Eagle Hawk point of Tasmania was before us.

Tasmania is to Australia what the Isle of Wight is to England on a rather larger scale. Australia is twenty-four times the size of the British Isles, and Tasmania is as large as Scotland, while the channel between them is 270 miles wide instead of two.

But Tasmania is, like the Isle of Wight, a beautiful island where Australians like to go for their holidays in the summer. Hobart is the capital, and you steam up to it for some twenty miles through a magnificent natural harbour of deep water protected on all sides from gales and high seas.

As you pass up this wonderful loch you see an island—well, it is almost an island, that is, a peninsula, con­nected with the land by a narrow neck with deep water on either side of it.

In the early days of the colony the convicts used to be kept here; and to give the warders less work to do the neck of land was guarded by a number of savage watch-dogs.

Then the sea on either side was infested with sharks, and they were encouraged to act as guards also by being continually fed with meat and scraps, and occasionally with a live pig so that they should learn not to be afraid of attacking a swimmer.

All this was a little discouraging to prisoners who wanted to escape, and they never tried to.

A Gallant Scout

Up behind Hobart rises Mount Wellington, near the top of which are some great crags and cliffs all of closely packed rock pillars; so the name  "organ pipes" which has been given to them describes them very well.

With a mountain so close on one hand, and the wooded heights and creeks of the Derwent River and harbour on the other, there is a grand field for scouting, and the Hobart Scouts and Girl Guides make full use of it.

We had a good rally in the grounds of Government House, where the Governor of Tasmania, Sir Harry Barron, reviewed and addressed the Scouts.

I also had the pleasure of pinning the Silver Cross for gallantry on the breast of Scout Clarke for his splendid act in diving into the river with his clothes on to rescue a man who was seized with cramp while bathing. Al­though the man clutched him and dragged him under, Clarke stuck to him, ducking him till he could no longer grip him, and then bringing him safely ashore.

The Sort of Country You Get in Tasmania

From Hobart in the south of Tasmania, the railway takes one through the centre of the island to Launceston the northern port, a distance of 120 miles.

The first part of the journey lies along the Derwent River with its prosperous-looking farms, hopfields, and orchards very like those at home in Kent, but backed by thickly wooded ranges of high hills.

Although it was mid-winter the country looked green and sunny, and the weather was not very cold. We did not keep all the time in low ground, for the railway left the Derwent valley and climbed up among the hills to a height of 1200 feet above the sea. Here the farms were largely clearings among hills forest-clad with fine red­gum and hardwood trees.

Instead of cutting the trees down and then having to cart them away and root out their stumps, the favourite way here is merely to cut a ring round the stem, in the bark, and thereby to kill the tree so that it no longer overshadows the ground or draws the good out of it; it thus allows crops to grow.

Launceston Scouts' Displays

Launceston is like a large English market town on the bank of the Tamar River. It had only a small rally of about a hundred Scouts. But they could do things several of them were good at throwing the lasso; they threw their lariats over other Scouts running about the ground, or caught them by the leg. I was told they are good at "roping" sheep in this way.

They also exhibited a number of model aeroplanes which they had made—and these showed very neat and clever handicraft. They also had a very well-equipped wireless telegraph troop.

The Tasmanian Devil

The Gorge at Launceston is one of the interesting sights of Tasmania. It is a narrow pass between cliffs and rocky hillsides through which. flows a fine stream of water. It is about two miles long and is kept as a public park and has beautiful views and wooded scenery.

Another sight in Launceston is the "Tasmanian Devil." He is kept in the Zoological Gardens there.

I expected to see a very startling beast and was quite disappointed when I was shown what at first looked like a litter of small black pigs or dogs! These were the animals known as Tasmanian Devils. They had heads rather like pig,, with dogs' bodies. They were very lively and active, but are said to be very wild and untamable. Another curious animal is the Wombat, but we only saw his back. There were several of him there, but, in every case he was curled up asleep; the night is his time for action. He is a very hairy little fellow, like a very small bear.

Then, though we didn't see him, we heard of another animal who is plentiful in the rivers of Tasmania, and that is the Platypus. He is flat-bodied like a mole, only about four times as large; instead of a mole's hands he has webbed feet like a duck's, and instead of a snout he has a duck's beak.

In the woods there are beautiful parrots, parrakeets, and cockatoos of all sorts; but they are not loved by the fruit farmers—they are worse than loafing boys for robbing orchards!

The green parrots are very beautiful birds, more like big swifts as they dart about in small flocks, flashing green and blue in the sunshine, with bright red heads and white throats; and they give a nice little chuckle instead of the usual harsh scream of the parrot tribe.

We saw also a great many wild swans. These are all black with red bills and they are very plentiful all over Tasmania. The pity is that people slaughter them in such a wholesale way that they will die out before long unless they get better protection.

There are still a good many kangaroos and wallabies—a small kind of kangaroo—about the State, but only where they are strictly preserved by the landowners.

Farming

The orchards of Tasmania are some of the finest in the world, and a great many of the best apples which you cat in England conic from there.

Sheep and cattle and horses all do well there also, and so do hops and wheat. Then there are some as wonderful mines for gold and for tin; Mount Lyell and Bischoffsheim mines are widely celebrated.

The timber, too, is very good—the carved fittings and doors of the great Town Hall at Melbourne are all of the handsome Tasmanian woods. So Tasmania is a rich, beautiful, and mild country, and it is not surprising to find it fill of British colonists of all kinds.

Brady the Bushranger

To get to Australia from Tasmania you embark on a steamer at Launceston and steam for forty miles down the Tamar River and then for 230 miles across the sea. Our ship had the Australian name of Rotomahana (which people call for short "The Rotten Banana ").

As we steamed down the Tamar we saw splendid looking fruit farms on the wooded hills on either bank, and very pretty homesteads nestling among the trees.

At one spot a high rocky bluff stood up above the forest. This is called "Brady's Look-out " because in the old days a celebrated bushranger or highway thief of the name used to hide in some caves in the neighbourhood, and from the bluff he could see round in all direc­tions and so escape from pursuers. But they got him in the end.

A Sea Scouting Practice

The sea between Tasmania and the mainland of Australia is called Bass Strait. George Bass, after whom it was named, was a young ship's doctor who came out to Australia in the vessel which brought Captain John hunter to be Governor in 1795. On the same ship was a midshipman named Matthew Flinders.

These two young seamen were fond of going on boat­ing expeditions while their ship was lying idle in harbour. In this way they set an example which is probably being followed by the Sea Scouts of Sydney of today in ex­ploring the creeks and channels of Sydney Harbour. They had a little boat which they called the Tom Thumb, and they not only explored the harbour, but they gaily sailed out on to the ocean and explored other inlets along the coast, including Botany Bay.

They made maps of these, giving the outline of the shore, and then with a lead line, marked off in fathoms and half and quarter fathoms (a fathom is six feet), they found the depth of water every here and there, and marked it on the correct spot in their map, and thus made a chart of it.

Of course the low-water depth only was shown, because the captain of a vessel only wants to know what is the lowest water that he will find in an anchorage or channel.

As Bass and Flinders proved, this kind of work is very interesting, and it may be of great value to other people. They were very nearly lost in a storm one day, and had to run before a terrific gale in continual danger of being swamped, and it was more by good luck than management that they at last ran between some rocks into a sheltered bay where they were able to land and dry themselves, for everything in the boat was soaked. They had even to spread their gunpowder out on the rocks, in the sun, in the hope of getting it dry again.

Just then a number of natives came down on them, but fortunately they were pretty friendly, and Flinders soon made them still more so, because among other things which, as a handy sailor, he could do, was he could cut hair.

These Australian blacks have long, bushy hair which they have no means of cutting, and when Flinders pro­duced a pair of scissors and snipped off some of their locks they were hugely delighted and became most kind and friendly.

On one occasion Bass went by himself, on an expedition along the coast to the southward, and then it was that he discovered that Tasmania was not, as had always been supposed, a part of the mainland, but that it was an island and divided front it by a wide strip of sea, and this accordingly received the name of Bass Strait.

How Australia Nearly Became French

When it became more generally known  that Tasmania was separate from Australia, the French had an idea of coming and seizing it for France, but an officer with some soldiers and a number of convicts from Sydney were sent there to occupy it, and they established themselves near the great harbour in the south. When settlers came later and made a town near them, it was called Hobart, after Lord Hobart, the Secretary of State in England for the Colonies.

But this was not the only attempt of the French to make Australia theirs.

Flinders spent a long time exploring and charting the Australian coasts in a small ship called the Investigator. When he had completed his charts and notes he took ship for England in order to take them home and get them properly drawn up and printed, but on the way he was taken prisoner by the French, with whom we were then at war, and was kept for seven long years at Mauritius.

His charts were stolen from him when he was first captured, and when at last he was released and allowed to go home, he found that they had been printed and published in France, but with French names put in in place of the English ones, and the country which he had called Australia (South Land) was there named "Napoleon's Land."

However, when the French came to see this land of Napoleon, they found the Union Jack flying over it, so they left it alone.

Melbourne

Melbourne lies on the flat, about five miles from the sea, with which it is connected by the little river Yarra. It is the finest city in Australia, and has very wide streets and handsome public buildings, and might very well be any great city in the Old Country.

The houses, the people, and the Boy Scouts all look and talk and do very much the same as those in Britain. One small difference is noticeable: instead of the ordinary horsed cabs or carriages, the Australians have covered waggonettes for hire on the cab-stands. And there are also cart-stands on which light waggons are always ready to be hired for any job for which you may need a cart.

Collins Street is the great thoroughfare of the city, and a very fine one it is. For anyone not to know Collins Street means that he has never been in Australia.

The Scouts of Victoria

In the big grass paddock in the park belonging to Government House at Melbourne, a great crowd assembled to see the rally of the Victoria Boy Scouts; and they made a fine show.

There were nearly a thousand Scouts on parade; but as Victoria is as large as England and Scotland together it was impossible for more than half the Scouts of the State to get there, although some of the distant troops sent a patrol to represent them.

The Scouts were a fine lot of lads and generally showed a great number of proficiency badges, and there were a good number of King's Scouts. Two kilted troops with their pipers made a grand show, and there was a patrol from a cripple troop.

After the inspection by the Governor, Sir John Fuller, the different troops gave demonstrations; and these were excellent.

Fire-brigade work by the "Scotties" was particularly smart, very good tent pitching and fire-light­ing, gymnasts, cycle ambulances; shocking accidents were treated by First-Aid Scouts, a rope bridge was rigged and crossed by His Excellency, and signal­ling was smartly carried out.

There was a very fine log-cutting competition by Scout axemen at Melbourne. I brought the winner's log home as a sample to be kept at Headquarters.

Then there was a very fine log-cutting competition by Scout axe­men, the best I have seen. The winner cut his log so neatly that I brought it home as a sample to be kept at Headquarters.

Another log I brought away with me was a present from one of the troops. It was a piece of the trunk of a tree about four feet long.

It did not look very interesting till one found that the upper side of it lifted off, and the log had been hollowed out to form a box, which was packed full of splendid apples—enough to last me all the way home!

One Melbourne Scout, Scout Allen, played the drum better than I have ever heard it played anywhere. He has won three gold medals for it and well deserves them.

At Madame Melba's

The country round Melbourne is very hilly, well­wooded, and covered with pretty farms and fruit orchards. I felt as if I should like to stop there and never come back to work in the Boy Scouts' office.

We motored over good roads through miles and miles of this beautiful country. And it was very good to feel that all the people we saw working in the fields, playing about the school houses; or looking out of cottage doors, were all our own blood and race—Britishers. And they were very enthusiastic ones at that, for somehow they had got wind of our coming (I was motoring with Sir John Fuller, the Governor of Victoria), and the Union Jack was flying (and not upside down as you so often see it in England) at almost every farm and cottage to greet His Excellency.

I suppose every Scout has heard of Madame Melba, the great singer. She is an Australian lady and took her name from Melbourne. And in the course of our drive we came to her beautiful little home.

It is a long, low house with a flat roof which forms a terrace shaded over with a trelliswork on which grape vines grow. Here she can sit and enjoy the view over park-like paddocks and forest-clad hills all round.

It was in these delightful surroundings we found the lady who has sung before emperors, and whose voice has charmed thousands in almost every city of the world. And what do you think she was doing?

She was just digging weeds in her garden and enjoying it.

She is also fond of boys—especially Boy Scouts.

"Melba's Own" Scouts

At the door of Madame Melba's house, when we arrived, was drawn up a smart guard of honour of Boy Scouts, the 1st Camberwell (Melba's Own) Troop. They had a number of King's Scouts and All-Round Scouts, and a very smart-looking young drummer among them. In passing him I told him he would have to practise a lot if he wanted to beat Scout Allen of the Malvern (Melbourne) Troop, whom I had heard a day or two previously; but when the guard of honour marched away the Camberwell drummer rattled his sticks in a way that showed me he was not so very far behind Allen in that line.

The badge of this troop is a sprig of wattle, the Australian tree which has a pretty little, sweet-smelling, yellow flower.

The troop handed to me a flag embroidered with this emblem which they wanted me to take home and present to their brother Scouts of the 1st Camberwell Troop in London, a duty which I carried out with pleasure on my return.

On an Australian Farm

I am awakened in the early dawn by the beautiful gobbling call of the Australian magpie outside my open window. It is a sweet sound, but a fearful one to imitate. The next time I see a patrol of "Magpies" among the Scouts I shall get them to give the cry so that I may see how to do it.

As the first rays of the sun streak up over the downs a violent scream of laughter comes from the gable of the roof. It is a laughing jackass, a funny-looking bird with a puffy-looking head and a mischievous sharp beak.

Then out on the lawn there hops a very smart little robin—very like our bird at home, but with some white feathers in his tail and a breast of exceedingly brilliant red.

Sheep-Wigging

I have often had a "Wigging," and when my host asked me to come and see a "Wigging" I thought for the moment I was going to hear him abuse one of the farm hands. Not a bit of it.

We came to some pens—what we should call "folds" in England—where a number of shepherds were at work among the sheep. They were "Wigging" them.

The wool of a sheep at this season of the year, that is in June, the Australian winter, gets so thick that it closes over the animal's eyes to such an extent that he cannot see where he is going. So the shepherd comes along and "wigs" him, that is, he clips the wool away from one side of the sheep's face so that he can see with one eye at any rate. The man does this with a pair of shears, and loses no time in doing it.

The Paddocks

We were on a farm or "run" of fifty thousand acres—a five-hundred-acre farm is not a small one in Britain, while a fifty-thousand-acre run in Australia is nothing out of the way.

The great open grass downs are divided off into "paddocks" of two hundred acres or so. They are fenced with solid posts and rails, and those along the boundaries are further completed with wire netting to keep the rabbits out. Rabbits, as I have told you before, have in some parts become a perfect plague and eat down everything.

The paddocks have each a row of trees and bushes planted to serve as a shelter to the sheep against the cold south wind.

Now here is a puzzle for a boy who is not a Farm Scout. These trees are planted near to the leeward side of the paddock—why?

You might have thought it would be better to plant the trees to the windward side.

The reason is, that though the sheep feed up towards the wind as a rule, they give way to it when it is strong and cold; and they drift, as it were, to leeward—in this way they get behind the shelter of the trees without knowing it. They have not the sense to go and seek such shelter themselves.

On such a huge farm, as you may imagine, the shepherds do not walk, they are all horsemen, and fine, hardy fellows they look as they go cantering across the downs with their sheep-dogs and their rabbiting greyhounds trailing after them.

On this run there is about a sheep to the acre—that is, there are fifty thousand sheep, all of the best merino breed. Each produces a crop of wool every year which may bring in from seven to eight shillings.

Counting Sheep

A very useful practice for Boy Scouts to learn is that of counting sheep.

It sounds an easy thing to do, so it may be when you have learnt, but it's not quite so easy as it looks.

Sheep have to be counted very often on a run, and a boy who shows himself good at it comes to the fore at once with the boss or manager.

The counter stands in a gateway and sends his dog to round up the sheep and to keep them moving through the gate while he counts.

The sheep don't dribble through one at a time—it would take you a month of Sundays to count them if they did; but two or three go timidly through, then there is a rush of a dozen together, then a few single ones scamper by followed by a ^whole mob pressing and squeezing together and so on. A beginner cannot count fast enough and soon gets confused, but after a little practice you begin to know about how many sheep are in a bunch by the size of it and you will be able to count by eights and tens at a time.

One shepherd told me that he taught himself to count sheep by practising with a bottle full of peas. He used to let these trickle out while he counted them. At every hundred he undid a button of his waistcoat and began a fresh hundred.

At first he let the peas trickle very slowly, but when he got good at it he was able to let them run at a good pace, so that an onlooker would think it impossible to keep count. But if the onlooker stopped him at any moment and then added up the peas himself he would find that he had counted them correctly.

So when he came to count sheep he was able to do it quite well, and did not get chaffed by the old hands for making false counts as most tenderfoots do.

Shearing

The wool-shed is the great centre of work in October on a sheep run. The sheep are brought in from the distant paddocks, penned, and brought in to be sheared.

The shearing is done by men who go round from farm to farm for the purpose, and of course they are pretty clever at it.

On a big run about twenty or twenty-five shearers will be employed for some weeks, as well as an equal number of "rouseabouts," who are boys or less skilled men who collect the wool as it is cut off.

The shearing is done with clipping machines run by an engine. The wool has different values according to the part of the sheep from which it is taken, as well as according to its length and texture.

So the shearer has to be careful to take off the wool on

the belly separately from that on the back as well as from that on the legs and neck. And the "rouseabouts" have to be careful to take the different sorts of wool to the different collecting bins. The wool is then packed in bales by being squeezed down in hydraulic presses and stitched in canvas covers for transport to Europe.

Kangaroos

On one farm we saw a number of kangaroos and wallabies. A wallaby is a small kind of kangaroo about the size of a big dog, and dark grey-brown. Like the kangaroo he gets about by hopping on his hind-legs and tail—and he can go at a tremendous pace, galloping like a greyhound with long rapid bounds and his body lean­ing forward, but his short little arms never touch the ground.

The kangaroo is a bigger animal, and you know what he looks like from his portrait on the patrol-flag of a Kangaroo patrol, but he does not shout "Cooee"—that is the call of the Australian native.

Kangaroos and wallabies, and their imitators the kangaroo rats, are marsupials—that is, they have a pouch in their skin in front of the stomach where they carry their young ones while they are still too small to get about quickly.

It is a funny sight to see the young ones when they are playing about in the open suddenly take alarm, and hop in a great hurry to their mother and take a flying leap at her chest and disappear into the bag.

A Greedy Emu

A boy is said to have the "digestion of an ostrich" because he can eat most things and not feel a pain after it; but I rather think an emu would defeat him in that line. Here is a list of trifles which, according to a newspaper account, were found inside a dead emu's stomach —and his death was not caused by them either!

In the stomach were found four pennies and five halfpennies, nine 22-in. nails, five marbles, one pump connection, one umbrella ferrule, one key, one medal, one watch wheel (22 in. in diameter), two studs, three buttons, one safety-pin, two staples, three washers, and twenty-four pieces of broken china, while a large pin was found embedded in the liver.

The emu was only young, and was a fine specimen. He had evidently lost no time in starting a museum inside him.

The Boundary Rider

One of the important men on a sheep station in Australia is the boundary rider. He has to go daily round the fences of the "run" or farm to see that they are in good order so that the sheep do not escape.

In close country a "run" may consist of 10,000 to 18,000 acres, while in the "backblocks" it may be double that size. This, of course, means hundreds of miles of fencing. So a rider has to go long distances every day to enable him to get all round in a week.

It is a very healthy open-air life, and the rider generally takes his gun and a few half-bred greyhounds with him, and he gets lots of fun hunting down the foxes, which are very destructive to lambs, and in getting rabbits.

Sundowners

Sometimes, too, he has more difficult work with "sundowners." These are men whom we should call tramps in England. Some years ago they used to go round from one farm or "station" to another looking for work, and the farmer was often glad to take a man

on for a few days, especially at busy times, such as sheep-­shearing, fruit-picking, or harvesting.

In any case, whether he wanted the man's services or not, he generally gave him food and lodging for the night, because distances are great and the man had generally done a good day's w^alk to reach the station; in fact, he got the name "sundowner" because he generally arrived at a station about sundown.

After a time the loafer began to find that sundowning was a nice, easy way of getting a living, so he took it up, too, without any idea of doing any work in return for his food. So now the sundowner is becoming a pest to farmers.

Very often there will be a dozen or more of these tramps to be housed and fed, and never less than two or three. So on most stations there is a shed for them and a regular ration of mutton and flour is served out to them to cook for themselves.

On a station near where I was staying the owner had done up the shed and had put in windows and doors and a floor, and had altogether made it into a rather comfort­able little house.

One evening he was sent for by his foreman as a party of sundowners were there and were threatening him. When the owner arrived he found nine big, hulking fellows with one very angry one at their head, so he asked what was the matter.

The leader held out the ration which he had just received of a piece of mutton and a tin of flour, and he asked the owner if he was not ashamed to give men such food. He and his mates, he said, did expect that with a house like that, which had windows and floor to it, they should have had something better than mere meat and flour offered to them—and they thought at least some coffee, sugar, milk, and butter should be added to it!

It seems a laughable thing that a loafer, who had not the slightest intention of doing a stroke of work in return, should have the cheek to ask this, but he did, and they got their food because, you see, the owner if he did not give in would probably find his fences broken down or his grass set fire to.

But in this case the owner took care next day to re­move the windows and floors from the rest-house so that new-comers should not expect so much luxury in the way of food.

The Australian Bight

The gale is howling through the rigging as I write this, and our ship is rolling and lurching along as the great leaden seas come surging and toppling towards her; and they part with a swishing roar as she splits her way through them. But every now and then they score by catching her heavily under the bow, or when with a crash they hurl a great dash of spray across her decks.

We have just crossed the Australian Bight, a bay nine hundred miles across, on our way from Adelaide to Fremantle on the west coast of Australia.

When you remember that it takes as long to do this voyage as that from Southampton to Gibraltar, you begin to see how great are the distances in Australia.

And it is always rough and stormy here. When we crossed from Sydney to New Zealand our little ship was running with water all over the decks, and came in late by twenty hours owing to the bad weather.

When we came back from New Zealand to Hobart in Tasmania again we met with gales and heavy seas. Now here we are again, once more delayed by storms and stress of weather.

It makes one wonder all. the more how those navigators of old came sailing he