The picture gallery consists principally of modern paintings, many of them by Australian painters or of Australian scenes.
It seemed to us that the painter has yet to arise who will really capture the spirit of Australian scenery. It is so wholly individual a thing in colour and chiaroscuro. In a photograph it shows not unlike Europe, but the heavy opaque look of the gums seen massed together at a little distance does not resemble anything on this continent, nor does the rather sad, almost dun-coloured effect of the grey eucalyptus, near at hand, nor the translucent atmosphere, the clarity of light, the brilliancy of sun, that makes a London winter seem a thing of abysmal gloom following on those illumined days.
Leaving the picture gallery, a long corridor leads to the free library, and Melbourne is justly proud of its beautiful and luxurious reading-room, in every way worthy of the chief city of a great democratic country. Circular in shape, it is surmounted by a dome so high that it rather dwarfs its proportions. But looked down upon from an upper gallery the effect of space and the soft radiance of the electric light falling on the white walls combine to give a charming architectural effect to the whole. Every member of the public over fourteen years of age has the right of free access to the library. The trustees have evolved an admirable system of a “travelling library,” for circulation among country residents of the state.
It was a very pleasant evening. Every section of Victorian social and official life was represented, for in an Australian town if there is an evening party everyone goes to it, because there are not dozens of other things going on at the same time as in London. So that everyone goes to everything, and thus in the smaller societies of colonial towns a few days in a place suffice to make many acquaintances, and a visitor can never feel a stranger.
The authorities, however, always hopefully provide an amount of cloakroom accommodation, which is to the needs of the guests in the proportion of a sentry-box to an army. Having already experienced this idiosyncrasy at Adelaide, we prudently deposited our wraps behind a large stuffed kangaroo and asked him to keep an eye on them. He faithfully fulfilled his charge.
We lunched next day with one of the leading citizens of Melbourne, one of those active, public-spirited men that colonial life produces, whose patriotism has grown with the growth of the town he has done his part in building. It was interesting, because in the colonies everyone is doing something and is ready to talk about his business, whatever it is. One of the guests, for instance, had a thousand acres of dairy farm in the neighbourhood of Bacchus Marsh. He could grow seven or eight crops of lucerne a year, but it cost him 30s. an acre for irrigation. Our host had a fascinating hobby of keeping a small private menagerie. In a sloping paddock beyond the garden a number of kangaroos were nibbling the grass; they were quite tame, but their pace if they are startled is incredible; they don’t appear to touch the ground, but seem to fly with their long hind-legs stretched out like a bird, skimming the ground with a curious effect of great speed.
This was the only occasion during our stay in Australia on which we saw a wombat. He is a thick-set, squat animal, about three feet long, and not unlike a large guinea-pig in build. He lives on grass and roots, and in his native state burrows a home for himself with his sharp claws. He is such an inveterate burrower that in captivity he can only be kept in an enclosure with a concrete floor and corrugated iron sides without a door; in fact, his pen resembled those in which pigs are incarcerated for life at Las Palmas, except that it was quite clean. He seemed not unfriendly in a molluscous way; he lifted his flat head to take grass from our hands, and his odd bristly fur felt like the spines of a porcupine to the touch.
But the most engaging denizens of the garden were the little opossums. The opossum bears a rough sort of resemblance to a squirrel with a long prehensile tail, and, like squirrels, lives in trees. When we went to look at them only the little pink inside of an ear was showing through the open door of their hutch. Then one brown eye appeared, a little hand-like claw was cautiously advanced towards the biscuit held out to it, a bushy whisker emerged, and slowly the whole opossum came into the open. They are most charming little things, very gentle and well-mannered; they gingerly hold your hand in their tiny white claws while they delicately nibble at your biscuit, and if they inadvertently bite your finger by mistake they immediately draw back with an air of distressed apology. Little Australian animals have an exquisite urbanity that makes them the most endearing acquaintances.
VIEW OF THE AUSTRALIAN ALPS FROM THE MURRAY RIVER FLATS.