366 AUSTRALIA : 



strange than in its human relation to our own small island, 

 on the very opposite point of the globe's circumference. The 

 first English settlers, chiefly convicts, landed at Sydney 

 seventy-four years ago. A population of more than a 

 million now dwells in these colonies ; intelligent, energetic, 

 and wealthy; possessing the political institutions and 

 freedom of the mother country; and maintaining all the 

 usages of English social life, even to the very pastimes which 

 amuse and give vigour to our youth.* A file of Sydney or 

 Melbourne newspapers of this day may fairly be counted as 

 one of the most curious documents in the history of our 

 race. They tell us not only of a commerce of unbounded 

 activity, but of literary, scientific, and charitable societies ; 

 of parliamentary debates; public meetings and dinners; 

 periodicals, club-houses, theatres, concerts, and races ; in 

 short, a sudden and complete translation of the social usages 

 of England to the opposite extremity of the globe. 



We have no room, however, to dilate on these various points, 

 or on those strange peculiarities in its native Fauna and 

 Flora, which distinguish Australia from all other regions of 

 the earth, and well justify Cuvier's expression in reference 

 to them : ' Hs sont venus etonner les naturalistes par des 

 conformations etranges, qui rompent toutes les regies et 

 echappent a tous les systemes.' Many of these anomalies 

 are becoming obliterated by the ingress of European life in 

 its different forms. Here, as elsewhere, the white man is 

 gradually displacing the coloured races ; bringing with him 

 the animals and plants of another hemisphere to minister 



* No more striking illustration of this can be given than the fact that, at this 

 moment (February, 1862), cricket matches are going on in Australia, in which 

 the ' All England Eleven,' already famous from their American triumphs, are 

 contending against the native cricketers of our great Southern Colony. It may 

 be added, as a further trait, that the English Eleven are transported from their 

 home ground at Lord's to the antipodes, at the exclusive expense of the colonial 

 population, 



