es two or three of them, over each other. These
garments are made of grass, leaves, or fibre, stained various colours.
'In wearing two or three, care is taken to produce an aesthetic mixture
of colours--a little vanity which is met with sometimes at home amongst
ladies who like to display petticoats of many colours. It is considered
just as essential here to walk well as it is at home, but the two styles
are not quite the same. The Laughlan lady, in walking, at each step
gives a little twist to the hips, which has the effect of making the
kilts fly out right and left, in what is considered a highly fashionable
and beautiful manner. Though a somewhat similar effect to this may, I am
informed, occasionally be seen in petticoats at home, still I fear that
the firm stride of the Laughlan lady could hardly be reproduced in
English boots. To see ten or twelve of these ladies walking in the
unsociable formation of single file, which they adopt, with their
many-coloured kilts flying out on either side, is a very pretty sight.'
Evidently, a judicious traveller and observer might do worse than take a
tour to the Laughlans.

Two other interesting spots to visit are Thursday Island and Norfolk
Island, both British possessions, and the first a place of some
importance, as the centre of the Torres Straits pearl-shell fishery.
This trade has demoralized the natives, who now seem to spend a great
part of their time in getting drunk, the Europeans too often setting the
example, 'It is a common thing,' says Mr. Romilly, 'for a diver to go
down three-parts drunk. The dress is supposed to have a very sobering
effect.' Here is a little story which will produce a pang of regret in
the minds of the jewellers of Bond Street:--

'The best pearl I ever saw was in the possession of a
celebrated diver who was a shipmate of mine from Thursday
Island to Brisbane. He was offered on board the ship two
hundred pounds for it, which could not have been a third of
its value. But he refused every offer, as he had just been
paid off, and had plenty of money. I felt sure it would go
the way of all pearls when his money was finished, and
accordingly I informed a Sydney jeweller of it, and where he
could see it. When I was in Sydney a few weeks later I made
inquiries about it, and the jeweller told me that it was the
finest pear-shaped pearl he had ever seen, but that it was
unsaleable at its proper