el how utterly inadequate it is to give the reader an idea of the
country as a whole. All that I have done has merely been to write down
my first impressions, unpremeditatedly and faithfully, of what I saw,
and what I felt and did while there. Such a short residence in the
colony, and such a limited experience as mine was, could not have
enabled me--no matter what my faculty of observation, which is but
moderate--to convey any adequate idea of the magnitude of the colony
or its resources. To pretend to write an account of Victoria and
Victorian life from the little I saw, were as absurd as it would be
for a native-born Victorian, sixteen years old, to come over to
England, live two years in a small country town, and then write a book
of his travels, headed "England." And yet this is the way in which the
Victorians complain, and with justice, that they are treated by
English writers. Some eminent man arrives in the colony, spends a few
weeks in it, perhaps rushes through it by railway, and hastens home to
publish some contemptuous account of the people whom he does not
really know, or some hasty if not fallacious description of the
country which he has not really seen. I am sure that, however crude my
description may be, Victorians will not be offended with what I have
said of themselves and their noble colony; for, small though the
sphere of my observation was, they will see that I have written merely
to the extent of my knowledge, and have related, as faithfully as I
was able, the circumstances that came within the range of my own
admittedly limited, but actual experience of colonial life.

[Illustration: SYDNEY, PORT JACKSON.]

CHAPTER XVIII.

ROUND TO SYDNEY.

LAST CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRALIA--START BY STEAMER FOR SYDNEY--THE 'GREAT
BRITAIN'--CHEAP TRIPS TO QUEENSCLIFFE--ROUGH WEATHER AT SEA--MR. AND
MRS. C. MATHEWS--BOTANY BAY--OUTER SOUTH HEAD--PORT JACKSON--SYDNEY
COVE--DESCRIPTION OF SYDNEY--GOVERNMENT HOUSE AND DOMAIN--GREAT FUTURE
EMPIRE OF THE SOUTH.

I spent my last Australian Christmas with my kind entertainers in
Melbourne. Christmas scarcely looks like Christmas with the
thermometer at 90 deg. in the shade. But there is the same roast beef and
plum-pudding nevertheless, reminding one of home. The immense
garnishing of strawberries, however, now in season--though extremely
agreeable--reminds us that Christmas at the Antipodes must necessarily
differ in many respects from Christmas in England.

Th