A story is told of an English woman who became engaged to a native Australian. She started from England to meet her fiancé at Adelaide. She had told her friends she was to be married to an Australian native. When she reached the end of her long journey and came ashore friends in Australia who met her, pointing to a kangaroo close by, remarked that the animal was the native Australian. "What!" shouted the bride-to-be. "Am I engaged to marry a kangaroo?"
The national flower is that of the wattle tree. This tree grows large, its leaves are small and of a very dark green color, and the limbs are dense. Blossoms come out very thick, and leaves, limbs and body of the tree are hidden from view under a profusion of rich, gold-colored flowers. Tracts of wattle-tree groves extend for miles, and when all the trees are in bloom it is a treat for the eyes seeking floral beauty.
Mutton and lamb are the meats chiefly eaten. One seldom gets a good cup of coffee in British territory, for the reason that the British are a tea-drinking race, and the same applies to Australia. As evidence of the hospitality met with in homes of British colonists, food dainties are always served with tea to callers.
After having said good-by to Adelaide, we boarded a train going to Melbourne. Upon reaching Ballarat, having heard of the Eureka Stockade, behind which gold miners defied militia in 1854, induced a longing to see this historical spot on the Australian continent where men faced each other with firearms. The skirmish between miners and troops came about through the authorities charging miners exorbitant sums for gold mining licenses. A stockade was thrown up—it is there to-day—and from that shelter bullets whizzed at the troops, and soldiers' bullets whizzed at the miners. The battle lasted ten minutes, after two dozen miners had been killed. With this exception, Australia is as barren of warfare lore as a large part of the country is of vegetation. Gold mining is still in active operation, and profitable. While gold is mined in all the States of the Commonwealth, the output of the West Australia mines is greater than the combined production of the other five.
When gold was discovered in Ballarat, in 1850, 65,000 people landed in Melbourne the next year, and in five years 337,000 had found their way to the diggings, although in those days vessels were small and slow, and the distance from Europe to Melbourne is 13,000 miles.
Ballarat has a population of 50,000, is in the State of Victoria, and 75 miles west of Melbourne. One of the principal streets is 168 feet wide. How many cities are there in the United States, the size of Ballarat, having an art gallery, a museum and creditable botanical garden? Ballarat has these. A nice lake also is within the city limits. The attractiveness of this place is unusual for a gold mining center.
With an acquaintance, a football game between two crack elevens was attended, and the price of admission to the grounds was 12 cents.
Ballarat holds her own in the matter of buildings, good lighting and street car systems.