h him, driving his flocks and herds before him, he
moved out into the wilderness looking for a place to settle or "squat."
It was the experience of the "Swiss Family Robinson" made real. The
little community, with its waggons and tents, its horses, oxen, sheep,
dogs, perhaps also with a few poultry in one of the waggons, would have
to live for many months an absolutely self-contained life. The family
and its servants would provide wheelwrights, blacksmiths, carpenters,
veterinary surgeons, cattle-herds, milkers, shearers, cooks,
bridge-builders, and the like. The children brought up under those
conditions won not only fine healthy frames, but an alertness of mind, a
wideness of resource which made them, and their children after them,
fine nation-builders.

I am tempted, in illustration of this, to quote from a larger work of
mine, "Australia," an instance of my own observation of the "resourceful
Australian":

"Without touch of cap, or sign of servility, the swagman came up.

"'Gotter a job, boss?'

"'No chance; but you can go round and get rations.'

"'I wanter job pretty bad. Times have been hard. Perhaps you recollect
me--Jim Stone. You had me once working on the Paroo.'

"It was a blazing hot day in Central Queensland on one of the big cattle
stations out from the railway line, a station which had not yet reached
the dignity of fencing. The boss remembered that Jim Stone "was a good
sort," and that it was forty miles to the next chance of a job. And
there was always something to be done on a station.

"'All right, Stone. I think I can put you on to something for a month or
two.'

"'Thanks. Start now?'

"'Look. I have got a few men on digging tanks, about thirty miles out.
It's north-north-east. You can pick up their camp?'

"'Yes.'

"'Well, I want you to take a bullock-dray out, with stores, and bring
back anything they want sent back.'

"'Yes. Where are the bullocks?'

"'I haven't got a team broken in. But there's old Scarlet-Eye and two
others broken in. You'll pick them up along that little creek there, six
miles out'; he pointed indefinitely into the heat haze on the plain,
where there seemed to be some trees on the horizon. 'Collar them, and
then you'll find the milkers' herd right back of the homestead, only a
few miles. Punch out seven of the biggest and make up your team.'

"'Yes. Where's ther dray?'

"'Behind the blacksmith's shed there. By the way, there are no yokes,
but you'll find so