om Port Brown to
Torres Strait, the average distance from the shore being about sixty
miles. Though the sea on the coast is made smoother by this giant reef,
navigation in other respects is undoubtedly rendered precarious by it.
Scientists think it indicates the former outline of the coast and
continent, about one fifth of which is supposed to have sunk beneath the
ocean.

Leaving out West Australia, which is at present so little developed, the
country may be divided thus. Queensland is the best and most extensive
pastoral section; in this respect New South Wales comes next. South
Australia should be characterized for its grain-fields, and Victoria is
richest in auriferous deposits; but there is gold enough in all the
colonies to afford constant stimulus to mining enterprise, fresh
discoveries in this line being made every few weeks.

Many young men belonging to the better classes of England's youth,
filled with poetic ideas, come out here to seek employment on
sheep-runs, having imbibed certain notions of a free out-of-door life,
and the charm of a half-wild career in the open country. But the reality
often amazes them. Some of these young men have been accustomed to a
life of elegant leisure, soft beds, dainty food, and plenty of servants
to do their bidding; but actuated by a desire to attain to a condition
of independence of family control, a wish to pay their own way, to earn
money by manly labor, or by some other of the thousand incentives that
not infrequently sever family ties, they have resolved to seek a new
field. In Australia they find freedom, but it is coupled with hard
work. There is no chance for drones in the business of sheep-raising, or
for those who would languish on downy beds of ease. The competitor in
this field must be in the saddle at daybreak, must learn to ride all
sorts of horses, and to catch and saddle the one he does ride; for all
the horses are turned out to get their own feed at large, and are never
stabled. They also get no grooming, except what their riders give them;
they are not even shod, and are sometimes addicted to bucking, which
will require all a man's knowledge of horsemanship to overcome. The
ranch-man has ten hours a day in the saddle, and must often ride fast
and far to round in his flocks. He must acquire the art of counting
them, of judging correctly of their condition, of shearing, and often of
killing them. For all this he may get five or six hundred dollars a year
an