me bar-iron and some timber at the blacksmith's shed.
Knock out some yokes. I think there's one chain. You can make up another
with some fencing wire.'

"'Right-oh.'

"And this Australian casual worker (at 30s. a week and rations) went his
way cheerfully. He had to find some odd bullocks six miles out, in the
flat, grey, illimitable plain; then find the herd of milkers somewhere
else in that vague vastness, and break seven of them to harness; fix up
a dray and make cattle yokes; and then go out into the depths to find a
camp thirty miles out, without a fence or a track, and hardly a tree, to
guide him.

"He did it all, because to him it was quite ordinary. The
freshly-broken-in cattle had to be kept in the yokes for a week, night
and day, else they would have cleared out. That was the only real
hardship, in his opinion, and the cattle had to suffer that. He was
content to be surveyor, waggon-builder, blacksmith, subduer of beasts,
man of infinite pluck, resource, and energy, for 30s. a week and
rations! And he was a typical sample of the 'back-country Australian.'"

In the Australian Bush most children can milk a cow, ride a horse, or
harness him into a cart, snare or shoot game, kill a snake, find their
way through the trackless forest by the sun or the stars, and cook a
meal. In the cities, too, they are, though less skilled in such things,
used to do far more for themselves than the average European child.

After the squatters in Australia came the gold-diggers. Gold was
discovered in Victoria and in New South Wales. At first, strangely
enough, an effort was made to prevent the fact being known that gold was
to be found in Australia. Some of the rulers of the colony feared that
the gold would ruin and not help the country. And certainly in the very
early days of the gold-digging rushes, much harm was done to the settled
industries of the land through everybody rushing away to the diggings.
Farms were abandoned, workshops deserted, the sailors left their ships,
the shepherds their sheep, the shop-keepers their shops--all with the
gold fever. But that early madness soon passed away, and Australia got
the benefit of the gold discoverers in a great increase of population.
Most of those who came to dig gold remained to dig potatoes and other
more certain wealth out of the land.

Do you remember the tale of the ancient wise man whose two sons were
lazy fellows? He could not get them by any means to work in the
viney