e had spent in Australia, and so he had never happened to get
interested in the matter. But there was no need to be ashamed. The most
of us have his defect. We take a natural interest in novelties, but it
is against nature to take an interest in familiar things. The gorse and
the broom were a fine accent in the landscape. Here and there they burst
out in sudden conflagrations of vivid yellow against a background of
sober or sombre color, with a so startling effect as to make a body catch
his breath with the happy surprise of it. And then there was the wattle,
a native bush or tree, an inspiring cloud of sumptuous yellow bloom. It
is a favorite with the Australians, and has a fine fragrance, a quality
usually wanting in Australian blossoms.

The gentleman who enriched me with the poverty of his formation about the
gorse and the broom told me that he came out from England a youth of
twenty and entered the Province of South Australia with thirty-six
shillings in his pocket--an adventurer without trade, profession, or
friends, but with a clearly-defined purpose in his head: he would stay
until he was worth L200, then go back home. He would allow himself five
years for the accumulation of this fortune.

"That was more than fifty years ago," said he. "And here I am, yet."

As he went out at the door he met a friend, and turned and introduced him
to me, and the friend and I had a talk and a smoke. I spoke of the
previous conversation and said there something very pathetic about this
half century of exile, and that I wished the L200 scheme had succeeded.

"With him? Oh, it did. It's not so sad a case. He is modest, and he
left out some of the particulars. The lad reached South Australia just
in time to help discover the Burra-Burra copper mines. They turned out
L700,000 in the first three years. Up to now they have yielded
L120,000,000. He has had his share. Before that boy had been in the
country two years he could have gone home and bought a village; he could
go now and buy a city, I think. No, there is nothing very pathetic about
his case. He and his copper arrived at just a handy time to save South
Australia. It had got mashed pretty flat under the collapse of a land
boom a while before." There it is again; picturesque history
--Australia's specialty. In 1829 South Australia hadn't a white man in it.
In 1836 the British Parliament erected it--still a solitude--into a
Province, and gave it a governor