e
the noise of the crushing-mills in the grinding season, and the busy
whirl of the centrifugal machine greet the ear in all directions. So
prolific is the soil here that the cane is said to grow like weeds, and
without cultivation.

Brisbane, like the rest of Queensland, has not escaped the inroads of
the Chinese; and here they are not favorites any more than elsewhere.
This universal prejudice against the Asiatics is in many respects both
reasonable and unreasonable. That the Chinaman never fails to introduce
certain vicious habits wherever he appears, goes without saying;
opium-smoking and gambling have become as natural to him as breathing.
But he is frugal, energetic, industrious, and in some respects a very
valuable member of a newly colonized country, filling a position which
would otherwise be unoccupied. In Australia he is content to follow in
the white man's footsteps, and utilize--as a miner, for instance--what
is left by his predecessor. A Chinaman will obtain fair results and good
wages by working over the "tailings" of the gold-fields, which are
thrown aside as useless by the more impatient and ambitious English
laborer. John is specially useful in many occupations, and is a natural
gardener, raising the best of vegetables for market upon refuse grounds
that no one else would think it worth while to cultivate. He reduces all
fertilizing matter to liquid form, and industriously applies it by hand,
destroying each insect pest with his fingers. No slug, caterpillar, or
vicious parasite can escape his vigilance. He sacrifices himself
entirely to the object in hand, and as long as there is sufficient light
for him to see to work, he continues to toil: no eight-hour or ten-hour
system answers for him. He is to-day essentially the market gardener of
Australia and New Zealand; no one attempts to compete with him in this
occupation. No European can bear the exposure to the sun or support his
strength under the enervating heat as the Chinaman can do. And yet with
all these qualities to recommend him, so undesirable is his presence
held to be by the people, that a law has been passed by which each
Chinaman landing in any of these colonies is obliged to pay the sum of
fifty dollars "head money," as it is called; and no women of the race
are permitted to land at all. Here, as in California and elsewhere, the
dead Chinaman is embalmed by a cheap process,--the body being finally
enclosed in a lead coffin, which in turn i