ARRIVAL IN AUSTRALIA 



a country where the horse is a necessity to all, not an 

 animal which may eventually be only an inmate of 

 the Zoological Gardens. 



It took some time to get into those big colonial teas, 

 which should have been called suppers. Of course, 

 many dined in the evening and designated the meal 

 dinner. Others, who had just the same food on the 

 table, with enormous pots of tea, stuck to the old- 

 fashioned term " tea." My word ! (Australian ex- 

 clamation) but to see huge steak puddings, fifteen 

 pounds of ribs of beef, with potatoes and cauliflower, 

 and four or five cups of tea ; well, it was enough to 

 give one indigestion without eating. I had to give up 

 the tea or the green vegetables — one or the other — 

 they never did go together. Australian evenings can 

 be very sociable; while not exactly like the surprise 

 parties in America and Canada, we had no need to 

 wait for an invitation, and sitting on a verandah with 

 a tumbler of whisky-and-soda and a pipe, the flying- 

 foxes attacking the fruit-trees, with the late cry of a 

 laughing- jackass from a tree, a perfect star-lit night 

 and a clear atmosphere — it made a man feel good. 

 And those dishes of fruit and cakes, with simple drinks, 

 which seem in abundance about half-past nine, are a 

 part of a very rational life. 



The meals in the various midday restaurants were 

 the limit of cheapness ; soup, entree, meat of all kinds 

 and sweets for a shilling at a place of the class of 

 Aaron's Exchange Hotel, enabled, I should think, the 

 small salaried man to do himself well. At the Cafe 

 Fran9ais we used to play dominoes, and I have seen 

 scores of pounds change hands in the hour after lunch, 

 not handed over openly, but chalked up or slipped 

 under the table. 



There were some very good billiard players about 

 38 



