AUSTRALIAN BOUNDARY RIDER.
The horses of Australia are now famous all over the world, and the Colonial riders are as celebrated. Indeed, in many districts men almost live in the saddle, for in the great southern continent estates are measured not by acres but by hundreds of miles, and the shepherds and boundary riders often have to ride long distances in their day's work.
COUNTRY COACH, AUSTRALIA.
An Australian horseman "up country" is a very picturesque figure with his slouched felt hat, his rolled scarlet blanket, and the tin billy-can dangling from his saddle.
There are not, as yet, many railways in the more thinly inhabited districts of Australia, and travellers drive in coaches drawn by two or four horses. Other vehicles are the buggies, light two-wheeled conveyances which can be used where there are few roads and the tracks through the bush are rough and steep.
CHAPTER VIII
TRAVELLING IN THE WILDS
After seeing the strange conveyances and modes of travel in Europe and in the civilised countries of Asia, it will be interesting to leave the beaten tracks behind us altogether for a time. We will go beyond the high roads and the railways, and find out how people make journeys in the great wildernesses of the world, where travellers must be prepared to undergo discomforts and hardships, to meet with dangers, and, very often, to carry their lives in their hands.