wonderful Australians love their weather. Other people would endure
it. They brag about it. I think they must be the happiest people in the
world.

By the way, I must qualify, before I forget to do so, the judgment
expressed above with respect to the Australian table. I tasted in
Adelaide a favourable specimen of the wild turkey, and I believe it to
be the noblest of game birds. Its flavour is exquisite and you may
carve at its bounteous breast for quite a little army of diners. And
the remembrance of one friendly feast puts me in mind of many. Is there
anywhere else on the surface of our planet a hospitality so generous,
so free and boundless, as that extended to the stranger in Australia? If
there be I have not known it. They meet you with so complete a welcome.
They envelop you with kindness. There is no _arriere pensee_ in their
cordiality, no touch lacking in sincerity. This is a characteristic of
the country. The native born Australian differs in many respects from
the original stock, but in this particular he remains unchanged. You
present a letter of introduction and this makes you the immediate friend
of its recipient. He spares no pains to learn what you desire and then
his whole aim and business in life for the moment is to fulfil your
wishes. Your host will probably be less polished than an Englishman
living in a like house and boasting an equal income, but his _bonhomie_
is unsurpassed. I used to think there was nothing like an English
welcome. Australia has killed that bit of English prejudice.

This very openness of welcome, the sincerity of heart in which your host
stands before you, is the means whereby the traveller first learns to
be dissatisfied. He has come out with his own judgment of things raying
from him in all directions--a very porcupine of pre-conception. He is
not merely persuaded that the colonies are loyal but he is certain they
are loyal after his own conceptions of loyalty.

So long as he encounters only the old folks he will find his
pre-conceptions flattered, but he will not go long before he meets
a member of the A.N.A. (which letters being interpreted signify the
Australian Natives Association), and then he must be prepared to be
astonished beyond measure. In a while, if he be a man of sense, he will
begin to see how natural the position of the Australian native is, and
then he will cease to be astonished, though he may still be grieved.
The society is large and powerful. It incl