26 



AUSTRALIAN PICTURES. 



man. He stands in the first rank of practical pioneers. The facts that go 

 to support the idea of the existence of large belts of rich prairie land in 

 this huge area are these : In the far interior the transition from barren 

 desert country to rolling downs is sudden and abrupt ; without warning, you 

 step from one to the other. The good and the bad country lie very much 

 in bands ; and an explorer making an easterly and westerly track might 

 travel in a bad band continuously, if he had the misfortune to strike one. 



Mr. Favenc's suggestion is that a well-supplied party should start from 

 a station on the Overland Telegraph Line, and should strike for . Perth, 

 making, however, extensive excursions on both sides of their route. The 

 bee-line business is almost useless. It would be well if the Australian 

 Geographical Society could take up the idea, for it is somewhat of a 

 reproach to the three millions of inhabitants that Australia should be less 

 mapped out than Africa ; and there is pleasure also in reducing to its 

 narrowest limits that bugbear of the youth of the colonies, the great fiery 

 untamed Central Desert. 



If, however, no more exploration be resolved upon, the work will only 

 be postponed, and not abandoned. As one coral insect builds over the other, 

 or as one wave on a rising tide overlaps its predecessor on the shore, so the 

 last outlying pastoral station is speedily passed by one just beyond it. In 

 this way settlement creeps on. Progress, though slow and unsensational, is 

 sure. 



The National Museum, Melbourne. 



