AUSTRALIAN LADIES. 341 



Steady and sober habits : they are also careful 

 of the money they earn : — as an instance, one 

 of them, who had just returned to Sydney from 

 a whaling voyage, on receiving his wages, placed 

 the amount in the hands of a gentleman, from 

 whom he drew occasionally, about ten shillings 

 at a time, to purchase clothes, or any other 

 necessary article. 



The Australian ladies may compete for per- 

 sonal beauty and elegance with any European, 

 although satirized as "corn-stalks" from the 

 slenderness of their forms. It is true their 

 reserve is great, but it proceeds from diffi- 

 dence, for in family intercourse they are both 

 animated and communicative. Their education, 

 from a deficiency of good schools, was formerly 

 much neglected, except they were sent to Europe 

 for that purpose ; but now that cause of com- 

 plaint is removed by the establishment of several 

 respectable seminaries and teachers ; so the high 

 degree of natural talent the Australian females 

 really possess may now be improved by proper 

 cultivation. Even among the male Australians 

 there is a taciturnity proceeding from natural 

 diffidence and reserve, not from any want of 

 mental resources : this led one of their more 

 lively countrymen to observe, " that they could 

 do every thing but speak." 



