d his rations, with the advantage, however, of living in the open air,
of having an unobstructed digestion and a ravenous appetite, and of
sleeping the sleep which no opiate can produce. The life upon a
sheep-run will be likely to make a man of him if he has the right
material in him, with plenty of endurance and adaptability.

The idyllic notions of shepherd life which may at first have attracted
him, and the real thing as encountered in the neighborhood of the
Darling Downs of Queensland, are two quite different things. There are
some who experience all this and with their first year's earnings
purchase sheep and go on adding to their flock annually, until by
natural increase and purchased additions they become master shepherds
and owners of great numbers. When success is thus achieved, which is
quite possible under ordinary good fortune, the profit that follows is
almost fabulous.

In a country where there are such enormous sheep-runs and where owners
count their herds by twenties of thousands, there must at times be a
glut of meat, and at all times an endless supply of it on hand. The
cattle-ranches, though not nearly so numerous, nor carrying such large
numbers of animals, yet produce relatively an immense supply of meat,
since one average steer is equal in weight to eight or ten sheep. Before
the present method of shipping fresh meat to Europe was perfected, it
was often the case that tens of thousands of sheep and horned cattle
were boiled down simply to produce tallow; and this practice is even now
resorted to, though to a more limited extent than heretofore. Tallow was
and is very easily packed and shipped. There were at one time over forty
boiling-down establishments in New South Wales alone, and statistics
show that three hundred thousand sheep and some hundreds of bullocks
were in one year converted into tallow by these establishments. The
carcasses of the animals for any other purpose were absolutely wasted,
while the poorer classes of England were denying themselves meat because
of its high cost in their own country. It was a realizing sense of these
facts which first led to the meat-canning process, which is still a
thriving industry here, and afterward to the building of ship
refrigerators, which make it possible to ship entire carcasses fresh to
Europe, where they never fail to arrive in the best condition for the
market.

The very name of Australia has a flavor of gold, and yet not one half of
its a