is invariably selected for the performance of the
corrobori, and the effect upon unaccustomed eyes is startling in the
extreme. The agile movements of the lean forms, black as night,
reflected by the radiance of their gleaming torches, the yells and
frantic gestures, together with the fierce onsets of the combatants
with spear and tomahawk, present a spectacle of weird interest, quite
in keeping with the wild scenery of the defiles and ravines where the
corrobori is usually celebrated.

[Illustration: A GOLD-MINE.]

The complexion of the Australians is black or very dark brown, their
hair straight, and their features of the negro type. They are of
medium stature, but generally thin, though well-formed, athletic and
agile. They are eager in the pursuit of gain, and this characteristic,
combined with their wonderful powers of endurance both of hunger and
fatigue, renders them patient and successful miners, while all other
causes combined have tended less to the development and improvement of
the Australian than has the discovery of gold within his borders. This
discovery, that has so changed the aspect of everything in Australia,
was the result of a mere accident that a thinking mind knew how to
turn to advantage. An adventurer from California, whose dreams by day
and by night were all of the land of gold he had so recently left,
while searching in company with another for a new pasturage-ground for
their sheep, came one day upon a range of low hills so like the
"Golden Range" of California as to bring back all his old
prepossessions in favor of mining. Stopping to examine, he found the
hills composed of granite, mica and quartz, the natural home of gold,
and his experience as a miner led to the conviction that though the
main body of the gold might have been already washed out among the
surrounding clay, yet enough remained to repay a careful search and to
indicate the existence, somewhere in the immediate vicinity, of a mine
of untold wealth. Several days were spent in unprofitable search: then
more favorable indications led the shepherds to dispose of their
flocks and set out in good earnest to dig for gold. A couple of
spades, a trowel and a calabash were their only tools, but our
adventurer was a knowing man, and "knowledge is power." His practiced
eye knew just where the precious metals would be most likely to exist
if at all in that locality--that in the old beds of rivers now dried
up gold would more naturally b