in wonder and
delight from the floating million. Instances out of all number might be
raked up, home and abroad, to show how the old dame has cut _didoes_ in
the prosecution of her manifold duties. But in Australia, it would seem,
nature has taken most especial pains to appear slightly ridiculous or
very eccentric.

Old Captain Rocksalt informs us--and there is always wit, wisdom, and
truth in the old man's stories--that he made voyages to Australia many
times within the past thirty years, and having visited about all the
sea-ports of the Continent, lived and almost died in Australia, his
notes are worthy of attention. Capt. Cook discovered and named _Botany
Bay_, the name originating from the fact that the land was covered with
a luxurious growth of Botanical specimens. The Dutch discovered and
named _Van Diemen's Land_. The English at once concluded to make Botany
Bay a penal colony, and the first living freight of criminals and
soldiers sent out, was some 700 in number, in 1788; but Capt. Phillip,
the commander of the fleet, being dissatisfied with the looks of Botany
Bay, hunted up a better place, and sailed to it. When Capt. Cook was
cruising off there, one of his sailors, on the look out, cried, "Land
ho!"

Cook was over his wine and beef, in the cabin, and it took him some time
to "tumble up" on deck.

"Where the deuce is your land, eh?" bawls the old cruiser.

"Larboard beam, sir!" responds the "lookout;" and, sure enough, a long,
faint streak of land was visible from deck. The "lookout" announced a
harbor, head-lands, &c.; but the rum old captain, not being able to see
any such indication, with a chuckle, says he--

"You booby! harbor, eh? Ha, ha! well, we'll call it a port, you powder
monkey--_Port Jackson!_"

And faith, so the lookout, Jackson, became sponsor to the finest harbor
in all Australia; for Capt. Phillip, upon rediscovering the harbor, took
his fleet into it, and then and there began the now flourishing city of
Sydney.

Australia is an Island, lying opposite another--New Zealand. It is on
the Indian Ocean, south side, while the east opens to the Pacific.
Australia claims to contain a superficial area of over three million
square miles, part desert, rather mountainous, and all being in one of
the finest climates on the face of the earth. The air is dry, the soil
light and sandy; the high winds stir up the dust and fine sand, and make
ophthalmy the only positive ill peculiar to the country.