NORTHERN TERRITORY 



4275 



NORTHMEN 



NORTHERN TERRITORY, the only one of 

 the divisions of the Commonwealth of Aus- 

 tralia not sufficiently settled or developed to 

 be a self-supporting state. Its area, 523,620 

 square miles, is nearly equal to that of Alaska, 

 y et , sparsely 

 inhabited as is 

 Alaska, that terri- 

 tory has about 

 eighteen times as 

 many white in- 

 habitants as the 

 Northern Terri- 

 tory, and proba- 

 bly a larger pop- 

 ulation of natives. 

 Situated in the LOCATION MAP 



northern half of the continent, between Queens- 

 land and Western Australia, the Northern Ter- 

 ritory was a part of New South Wales till 1863, 

 and under the control of South Australia until 

 it was taken over by the Federal government 

 on January 1, 1911. Its capital is Darwin, for- 

 merly Palmerston, situated on the shore of Port 

 Darwin, which is said to be the largest harbor 

 in the world. 



In recent years the principal income of the 

 territory has been from tin, though previously 

 gold had been more important. Silver and cop- 

 per are also mined, and tungsten and otlier 

 metals have been found. There are about 400,- 

 000 cattle, a little over one-third as many as 

 in the average state of the United States or 

 province of Canada, and smaller numbers of 

 sheep, horses and pigs. 



The future of Northern Territory seems 

 bright Though the population (exclusive of 

 the aborigines, of whom no count has ever been 

 n) is less than it was twenty years ago, this 

 is due to the departure of Chinese, and the 

 white population of about 2,000 is greater than 

 ever before. At present the territory has but 

 one railroad, 145 miles long, and can be reached 

 only by sea. But the government is building a 

 road from South Australia which is expected 

 to stimulate mineral development, the open- 

 ink' of the farm lands of the interior (which 

 can be watered by artesian wells) and the 

 growth of Darwin and other ports. Darwin is 

 i one to two thousand miles nearer to Eu- 

 rope and Asia than any of the other Common- 

 wealth ports except Perth, and is the terminus 

 of the cable from Java, which gives Australia 

 icction with Europe. It is also a wireless 

 n. an. I is connected with South Australia 

 by overland telegraph. 



NORTHMEN, or NORSEMEN. Between 

 the eighth and the eleventh century the coasts 

 of the British Isles and of other sections of 

 Western Europe were ravaged by bands of in- 

 vaders from the Scandinavian peninsula. Ti 

 bold and adventurous Northmen, or Norsemen, 

 as they are variously called, were the Vikings, 

 or sea rovers, who have contributed so much 

 of romantic interest to the history of medieval 

 Europe. Their life in their Northern homes is 

 picturesquely suggested by Longfellow in hig 

 Skeleton in Armor: 



I was a Viking old ! 



My deeds, though manifold. 



No Skald In song has told, 

 No Saga taught thee. 



Oft to his frozen lair 

 Tracked I the grisly bear. 

 While from my path the hare 



Fled like a shadow; 

 Oft through the forest dark 

 Followed the were- wolfs bark, 

 Until the soaring lark 



Sang from the meadow. 



A softened form of the name Northmen is 

 found in Norman, which was applied to the 

 Norsemen who settled permanently in France 

 and founded Normandy. The Northmen who 

 entered the British Isles were from Denmark. 

 Beginning about 787, they harassed the coasts 

 of England again and again until they were 

 securely established on the island. Though the 

 Anglo-Saxon king, Ethelred I, and his brother, 

 Alfred the Great, sent their best warriors 

 against them, the Danes maintained their power 

 until 1042. Colonies were also made by the 

 Norsemen in the Orkneys, the Hebrides, the 

 Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland, and 

 there is a tradition that the Viking Leif Eric- 

 son visited the coast of New England in the 

 eleventh century, over four centuries before the 

 first voyage of Columbus to the New World. 



It is supposed that the Northmen w. 

 cited to leave their homes in Scandinavia be- 

 cause there was insufficient food to support the 

 increasing population. Their natural love of 

 adventure, typical of the imaginative peoples 

 of the North countries, was perhaps no less 

 powerful as an inciting cause. (Sec illustration 

 on next page.) 



Consult Fischer's Dtecoverica of the Noriemen 

 in America; Hovgaard's The Voyage* of the 

 Norsemen to America. 



Hrlated Subject*. The reader ! referred to 

 the following articles In these volume*: 

 Canute Normandy 



th< Red Normans 



England 



