t
calmly says "Sold to Smith & Co., threpence farthing--next!"--when
probably nothing of the kind happened; for how should he know?

In the museums you will find acres of the most strange and fascinating
things; but all museums are fascinating, and they do so tire your eyes,
and break your back, and burn out your vitalities with their consuming
interest. You always say you will never go again, but you do go. The
palaces of the rich, in Melbourne, are much like the palaces of the rich
in America, and the life in them is the same; but there the resemblance
ends. The grounds surrounding the American palace are not often large,
and not often beautiful, but in the Melbourne case the grounds are often
ducally spacious, and the climate and the gardeners together make them as
beautiful as a dream. It is said that some of the country seats have
grounds--domains--about them which rival in charm and magnitude those
which surround the country mansion of an English lord; but I was not out
in the country; I had my hands full in town.

And what was the origin of this majestic city and its efflorescence of
palatial town houses and country seats? Its first brick was laid and
its first house built by a passing convict. Australian history is almost
always picturesque; indeed, it is so curious and strange, that it is
itself the chiefest novelty the country has to offer, and so it pushes
the other novelties into second and third place. It does not read like
history, but like the most beautiful lies. And all of a fresh new sort,
no mouldy old stale ones. It is full of surprises, and adventures, and
incongruities, and contradictions, and incredibilities; but they are all
true, they all happened.

CHAPTER XVII.

The English are mentioned in the Bible: Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

When we consider the immensity of the British Empire in territory,
population, and trade, it requires a stern exercise of faith to believe
in the figures which represent Australasia's contribution to the Empire's
commercial grandeur. As compared with the landed estate of the British
Empire, the landed estate dominated by any other Power except one
--Russia--is not very impressive for size. My authorities make the British
Empire not much short of a fourth larger than the Russian Empire.
Roughly proportioned, if you will allow your entire hand to repre