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From The Fortnightly Review.
AUSTRALIA IN 1888.

LAST summer I gave in this review a short sketch of the Cape Colony in 1888; in the following pages I propose, whilst the memory of one of the most interesting journeys that I have ever made is still fresh, to put upon paper some brief impressions of my visit to Australia last year. I have this further reason for not delaying to do so, that as all things change in this changing world, so in Australia the scene is undergoing perpetual alterations. The Australia of 1888 is not the Australia of ten years ago, nor will the Australia of 1898 be identical with that of to-day. The popular song of " Advance, Australia," is in this sense very true of that great continent. Every year the energy of man and the discoveries of science tend to develop new resources and to alter the face of the country, to make it more and more the home of a large population, to awaken new aspirations, to create fresh interests, to make it distinctly one of the family of nations with their mingled inheritance of joys and sorrows, and responsibilities and cares. Of the old world it was long ago written, "Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy." But, for the present at all events, the opposite may be said of Australia; for considered as a whole, her lot is one of extraordinary prosperity, and for a while at least the increase of her population only means the development of her vast resources and the augmentation of her material wealth.

extraordinary kindness which during my short visit I received from every class with whom I came in contact. The welcome which I had was such that I shall always cherish its memory among my most valued recollections.

With the exception of New Zealand, the sight of which I was most reluctantly compelled to forego, I saw each of the Australian colonies, and perhaps at a more than usually interesting time. One International Exhibition at Adelaide was closing, another at Melbourne was about to open, the centenary of New South Wales was celebrated amid public and private rejoicings, and the first real act of legislative union between England and Australia for the purposes of common defence was accomplished by the all but unanimous voice of the several Parliaments.

After three weeks of ceaseless storm in the South Pacific, mountainous seas and icy winds, over an ocean cheered by no sail and inhabited only by some stately and melancholy albatross, I find, when within twenty-four hours' sail of Tasmania, this question in my diary: "What will Australia be, and what will it be like?" and the first answer to my question was, as is often the case, the one which was least expected. We were approaching Australia at a time of year when winter should have been past and gone, when the first balmy breath of spring was due, when all nature rejoices, and when in the words of the old Greek poet, the days become long and the plane-tree whispers It has been my good fortune through a softly to the elms. But our first sight of large part of my public life to be con- Tasmania, the garden of Australia, was nected with colonial affairs; and, which little consonant with these dreams. Stern is perhaps less common, to keep up an rocks, an iron-bound coast half veiled in acquaintance with the persons, things, storm, Mount Wellington streaked with and places that colonial administration snow, the smiling town of Hobart and its represents. It was therefore to me no picturesque harbor shrouded in rolling ordinary pleasure to see with my own eyes clouds of mist, were the scene on which one of those great countries of which I our eyes rested. Yet before we said farehad known so much, though hitherto only well to Tasmania, nature relaxed her through official communications, and to frown and gave us, though fitfully, some make personal acquaintance with her glimpse of the beauties which have leading citizens and statesmen on their charmed so many travellers. Mount own soil. And here, once and for all, I Wellington disclosed his massive sumtake the opportunity of expressing my mit; the Derwent rolled its picturesque grateful appreciation of the extreme and stream glittering in sunshine, down to the

sea; and Hobart, under unclouded skies, | of the community, and there has been an looked that which its loyal people most absence of the storms and contentions desire it should look, an essentially En- which party institutions are apt to english town. On no part of Australia are gender. Yet I do not think that this I think English characteristics more peaceful and even tenor in political progstrongly impressed than on Tasmanian ress has detracted from good legislation, things and persons. Life is simple and or the well-being of the people. In three habits homely, the eager competition of important enactments at least land business and politics is absent, the vast transfer, abolition of imprisonment for fortunes of the mainland do not exist; but debt, and compulsory education — the the turn of thought and conversation, the Tasmanian Parliament has, if I mistake social influences, the very look of mute not, anticipated the decision of the impeand material things, the roads, the hedges, rial legislature. the enclosures, all wear a distinctly English character.

essarily be the case; and in this stage of in their massive grandeur and the harbor their existence it is not wholly beyond in its sunny beauty are no unworthy illusthe power of Australian cities to catch trations of what nature can do on the some of the pristine colors, and to reflect other side of the Pacific. Nor less does some of the more generous characteristics Adelaide — that fair city of flowers as I of their ancient prototypes. first knew it lying at the foot of the mountains or bounded by a broad rim of purple sea, when first seen from the railway, as it winds its track downwards by sharp curves and steep inclines, dwell in the memory of those who have once looked upon it. But Adelaide has one character

There is another anology to be traced between the Australian capitals and those ancient republics, in the rivalry the not unworthy rivalry — which incites them to and in their public action. Much of the history of Athens, Sparta, Corinth, is the history of civil war; and the fertile plains | istic which distinguishes it from almost of Italy were drenched with blood in the contentions of Genoa, Florence, Milan, Venice; but happily the towns of Australia are divided only by the question of a tariff, or a change of name, or the imposition of a tax. And when they meet on the cup‐day at Melbourne the modern counterpart of Isthmian and Olympic games they come together as men who are conscious that they spring from the same stock with common affections and interests. Such an occasion was the celebration last year of the New South Wales centenary, when the governors and prime ministers and chief justices and legislators from almost every part of the Austra lasian colonies were gathered together to do honor to the rising fortunes of the South Pacific dominion.

Nature, in truth, has lavished some of her best gifts on these cities. To all she has given a kindly soil, a fine geographical position, and that glorious and unstinted sunshine, which like an elixir of life enters so largely into the social habits and physical constitution of every native Australian, and which the inhabitant of a northern country can only admire with a sigh when he thinks of the Cimmerian gloom in which his own home is shrouded during a large part of the year. But to some she has accorded special favors. Brisbane, with its winding stream, as beautiful an incident in the broad landscape as it is eminently fitted for military defence, has in it all the capabilities of a very fine city. The praises of Sydney, on the other hand, have been so often and so lovingly sung that a prudent traveller will perhaps prefer on this theme silence to description. Yet the Blue Mountains

all other modern or ancient towns. It was laid out with singular discretion by its original founders, who enclosed the town within a broad band of park, providing an abundance of air and light and preventing the overcrowding of population and the jostling of houses against each other. Colonel Lyte, who planned this wise disposition, shared, I fear, the fate of other great designers. He had little praise during life for his forethought, and the honors which are his due were only accorded when the grave had closed over him. Now all recognize the wisdom of the idea; and Adelaide, with her charming botanical and zoölogical gardens, the half-way house between western and eastern Australia, and the centre of those telegraphic communications with Europe, which by her energy she established in her younger days, can never be other than one of the leading cities of the continent.

And yet these striking cities, the busy haunts of men and centres of trade, with their Parliament Houses, their parks and gardens, their stately buildings and public institutions, are only a part of Australia. Other towns are growing into wealth and importance, though following on a smaller scale their respective capitals, as our provincial towns reflect the metropolis of the mother country; and country houses, and endless hamlets, and suburbs, where a holiday can be enjoyed or where the cares of business can be laid aside, recall under another sky the habits and recreations of Englishmen at home.

The roads which traverse the country, or still more the lines of railway piercing the bush and spanning broad rivers, which now connect the eastern and a large por