The Days of a Man 1907 



widely spread. Indeed, it was frequently asserted that 

 "every Japanese boy is taught to find Australia on 

 the map because it is to be his future home." 

 Misguided Gross misapprehensions as to the people of Japan 

 as a whole and the purposes of their government pre- 

 vailed everywhere, and it was considered a matter of 

 patriotism to believe them. The Japanese menace, 

 thus worked to the utmost by the military group, 

 brought about compulsory drill for boys, the gross 

 abuses of which people were expected dutifully to 

 condone. But one aspect especially was wholly over- 

 looked; to teach anything worth while requires good 

 instructors, yet most details were left to veteran 

 troopers of the Boer War, "no plaster saints" at the 

 best, and certainly without pedagogic skill. 



Botany From Sydney, Haswell and David took me by 



automobile about twenty miles south to Botany Bay, 

 a locality sadly notorious in Australian history and 

 forming part of the setting of a most virile book, 

 Marcus Clark's "For the Term of His Natural Life." 

 I also went with the Davids to the Blue Mountains, a 

 majestic table-land remarkable for its caves and 

 gorges cut through by rivers, which separates the 

 coast region from the "back country." 



Showy In the thickets occur three species of Callistemon, 



blossoms "bottlebrush tree," their showy pendent tassels of 

 bloom made up of long crimson stamens. Grevillea, 

 with grotesque, comb-shaped, golden clusters, is also 

 characteristic, as is Banksia, still another of the 

 great Proteus family, on which, instead of flowers, 

 I saw only the absurd-looking seed pods. Worth 

 noting as well are two species of Sterculia, robust and 

 symmetrical in growth, one of them the gorgeous 



C 214 3 



