[ASTROLABE AND ZÉLÉE ON CORAL REEFS]
[MONUMENT TO BURKE AND WILLS.]
[BAS-RELIEF: RETURN TO COOPER'S CREEK.]
[BAS-RELIEF: FINDING OF BURKE.]
[VALLEY OF LAUNCESTON, VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.]
[COURSE OF THE TAMAR, VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.]
[GORGE OF THE TAMAR, VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.]
[ON THE WAY TO THE WOOD-DRIFT.]
[OUR ARRIVAL AT THE DRIFT-KEEPER'S COTTAGE.]
[INTERIOR OF TOMERL'S COTTAGE.]
["FIXING THE BOAT-HOOK INTO AN INDENTATION, I PULLED MYSELF IN."]
AUSTRALIAN SCENES AND ADVENTURES.
CONCLUDING PAPER.
FOREST OF COCKATOOS.
People who go to Australia expecting every other man they meet to be a convict, and every convict a ruffian in felon's garb, will assuredly find themselves mistaken. And if contemplating a residence in Sydney or Melbourne they need not anticipate the necessity of living in a tent or a shanty, nor yet of accepting the society of convicts or negroes as the only alternative to a life of solitude. Neither will it be necessary to go armed with revolvers by day, nor to place plate and jewels under guard at night. Sydney, the capital of the penal colony, is a quiet, orderly city, abounding in villas and gardens, churches and schools, and about its well-lighted streets ride and walk well-dressed and well-bred people, whose visages betray neither the ruffian nor the cannibal. Some of them may be convicts or "ticket-of-leave-men," but this a stranger would need to be told, as they dress like others, their equipages are quite as stylish, and many of them not only amass more property, but are really more honest, than some of those never sentenced, because they know that the continuance of their freedom depends on their reputation.