PRINTED BY
TURNBULL AND SPEARS,
EDINBURGH
TO
DEAR LITTLE MARY
THIS LITTLE BOOK
ABOUT
THE LITTLE BLACK BOYS AND GIRLS
OF A FAR-OFF LAND
IS DEDICATED BY
HER FATHER
My Dear Boys and Girls,
All the time I have been writing this little book I have been wishing I could gather you all around me and take you with me to some of the places in faraway Australia where I myself have seen the little black children at their play. You would understand so much better all I have tried to say.
It is a bright sunny land where those children live, but in many ways a far less pleasant land to live in than our own. The country often grows very parched and bare, the grass dies, the rivers begin to dry up, and the poor little children of the wilderness have great difficulty in getting food. Then perhaps a great storm comes and a great quantity of rain falls. The rivers fill up and the grass begins to grow again, but myriads of flies follow and they get into the children's eyes and perhaps blind some of them, and the mosquitoes come and bite them and give them fevers sometimes.
Yet though much of the land is wilderness—bare, sandy plains—beautiful flowers bloom there after the rains. Lovely hibiscus, the giant scarlet pea, and thousands of delicate white and yellow everlastings are there for the eyes to feast upon, but the loveliest flowers of all are frequently the love and tenderness and unselfishness which bloom in the children's hearts.