fourteen pupils. He was dressed like a gentleman, but earns
less than the labourers, who get ten shillings a day, or 3_l._ a week,
the best hands being paid regularly under all conditions of weather,
and only the inferior labourers receiving their wages for the time
during which they are actually at work. There are four fine teams of
Australian-bred horses, and a spare pair for road or bush work.
Communication with Albany, the base of operations, is of course
maintained by means of the line, some of the navvies even coming from
and returning thither each day in the trucks. The married men who live
in the forest have nice little three-roomed cottages, and those I went
into were neatly papered and furnished, and looked delightfully clean
and tidy. The single men generally live in a sort of tent with
permanent walls of brick or wood, and mess at a boarding-house for
eighteen shillings a week. This seems a good deal for a labourer to
pay for food alone, but it really means five good meals a day. The
little colony has a butcher attached to it, from whom meat of the
finest quality may be purchased at sixpence per pound, all but the
prime parts being thrown away.

The rest of the party having walked up the line, I waited for them at
the house of the District Manager, who with his wife received me most
hospitably. On the walls of the apartment I was interested to notice
the portraits of some of those who had been connected with my
father-in-law in business, and who are now in the employ of Messrs.
Miller, the contractors for this line.

As soon as Mr. Stewart and the rest of the party had joined us, we
proceeded to the saw-mills and watched some great logs of jarrah being
cut into sleepers. There were no elephants to assist in the operation
as in Burmah, so that all the work had to be done by steam, with a
little help from men and horses. Quantities of fragrant rose-coloured
sawdust, used for stable litter, were lying about. Tons of wood not
large enough for sleepers were being burned in order to get rid of it.
It seemed a terribly wasteful proceeding, but there was more material
than was wanted, and space after all was the great thing needed.

From the saw-mills we penetrated further into the forest, in order to
see more large trees cut down, hewn into logs, and dragged away. Some
of the giants of the forest were really magnificent. We followed a
double team of sixteen horses drawing a timber-cart composed of one
long thic