90 IN AUSTRALIAN WILDS 



and in the daytime the air becomes heated, so that it 

 is penance to be under the roof. On a broiling after- 

 noon I spent fifteen minutes in one of these dwellings, 

 changing plates in the dark-slides, and emerged limp 

 and perspiring, as if I had been over long in a Turkish 

 bath. 



One of the most picturesque homesteads that I 

 visited in the Mallee country is inhabited by a large 

 family, which lives in the patriarchal style. Most of 

 the sons and daughters are grown up, and when the 

 family assembles for a meal the scene is impressive. 

 The father, a handsome white-haired old man, pre- 

 sides at the head of the long table, whence his eyes 

 can range over two rows of "children" to his wife, 

 seated at the other end of the board. It was a privi- 

 lege to join this family circle, if only for a day. I 

 came an utter stranger, and was welcomed like a son. 



In the Mallee one meets all sorts and conditions 

 of men. The sun-tanned settler, who shouts a greet- 

 ing from amid the wheat, may have been tinker, tailor, 

 clerk or policeman before going on the land ; the "man 

 with a hoe," perhaps, was a pressman in other days. 

 Many of the settlers are prosperous. A young man 

 who earned forty shillings a week in the city may win 

 an income of 500 a year from his Mallee block. But 

 the loafer had better remain among crowded streets; 

 the Mallee is no place for idle hands. Labour and de- 

 termination are essential to success. Some men are 

 easily beaten, a bad season drives them on to the reef 

 of failure ; while others, stout of heart, weather every 

 storm and reach the port of prosperity. 



When on a visit to Lake Boga, 205 miles from 

 Melbourne, I was driven out to a small patch of 

 Mallee scrub, a kind of private sanctuary, surrounded 

 by cultivated land. The owner had protected Lowans 

 and other birds, and a day spent in the scrub was 

 marked by many pleasant experiences. No fewer 



