1460 



A US TRALASIA ILL US TRA TED. 



energy and enterprise, had not distinguished itself as one famous for its taste for sport 

 and popular out-cloor amusements. There is no winter in Australia in the sense the 

 term conveys to those who come from older lands ; snow is a curiosity for most of the 

 native-born ; there is no rainy season, properly so-called, and all through the year the 

 sunshine and clear air invite the young men of Australian cities to the sports of the 

 field, and to the cultivation of all that pleasant business of recreation which in England 

 can be pursued only during three or four months in the year. If the observant 

 stranger, who makes one of those flying visits to the Australian Continent from the 

 Old World that are every year of late becoming more and more common, were asked 

 to name the distinguishing note of Australian character, as it superficially struck him on 



a first acquaint- 

 ance, he would 

 probably be 

 found giving an 

 enthusiastic pre- 

 dilection for sport 

 and out-door 

 amusements un- 

 hesitatingly the 

 premier place. 

 Our national love 

 for certain forms 

 of sport has made 

 the Australian 

 name famous all 

 over the world. 

 Our cricketers, 

 our foot-bailers, 

 occasionally our 

 race-horses, and 

 last, but not least, 



our scullers, have contested with the best material that could be brought on the fields, the 

 race-courses and'the rivers of England and America, and if they have not always won first 

 place, they have, at all events, carried away the palm often enough to make their prowess 

 respected, and their merits enthusiastically acknowledged. Team after team of representative 

 cricketers has at various times gone to England to compete with the best players in the 

 very home of English cricket ; and more than once they have come home bearing the 

 spoils of victors back to Australia with them. Foot-bailers from New Zealand have followed 

 their example, showing that, in this respect at least, the most distant colonies have very little 

 to learn from the mother-country. The most popular of our sports, that of horse-racing, 

 has not yet reaped many laurels abroad. In June, 1891, Mons. Meg, a purely Australian 

 horse from New South Wales, won the Queen's Gold Vase at the Ascot Heath meeting; 

 this being the first colonial win in England. But in aquatics we may justly claim to have 

 borne the palm of the world away, and our successive champion scullers have, one after 



PARADING A "CUP WINNER. 



