ry seats have
grounds--domains--about them which rival in charm and magnitude those
which surround the country mansion of an English lord; but I was not out
in the country; I had my hands full in town.

And what was the origin of this majestic city and its efflorescence of
palatial town houses and country seats? Its first brick was laid and
its first house built by a passing convict. Australian history is almost
always picturesque; indeed, it is so curious and strange, that it is
itself the chiefest novelty the country has to offer, and so it pushes
the other novelties into second and third place. It does not read like
history, but like the most beautiful lies. And all of a fresh new sort,
no mouldy old stale ones. It is full of surprises, and adventures, and
incongruities, and contradictions, and incredibilities; but they are all
true, they all happened.

CHAPTER XVII.

The English are mentioned in the Bible: Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

When we consider the immensity of the British Empire in territory,
population, and trade, it requires a stern exercise of faith to believe
in the figures which represent Australasia's contribution to the Empire's
commercial grandeur. As compared with the landed estate of the British
Empire, the landed estate dominated by any other Power except one
--Russia--is not very impressive for size. My authorities make the
British
Empire not much short of a fourth larger than the Russian Empire.
Roughly proportioned, if you will allow your entire hand to represent the
British Empire, you may then cut off the fingers a trifle above the
middle joint of the middle finger, and what is left of the hand will
represent Russia. The populations ruled by Great Britain and China are
about the same--400,000,000 each. No other Power approaches these
figures. Even Russia is left far behind.

The population of Australasia--4,000,000--sinks into nothingness, and is
lost from sight in that British ocean of 400,000,000. Yet the statistics
indicate that it rises again and shows up very conspicuously when its
share of the Empire's commerce is the matter under consideration. The
value of England's annual exports and imports is stated at three billions
of dollars,--[New South Wales Blue Book.]--and it is claimed that more
than one-tenth of this great aggregate is represented by Australasia's
expo