e was again an early dinner
to-night, to allow of our all going afterwards to the Bijou Theatre to
see Madame Majeroni in 'Wanda.'

_Saturday, June 18th._--Tom, Tab, and Mabelle returned to-day from
Mount Gambier. I must use Tom's description of the expedition.

'We made another excursion from Melbourne on June 14th, to attend the
opening of the railway connecting the district of Mount Gambier, in
South Australia, with the direct line from Adelaide to Melbourne. We
travelled to Wolseley by the ordinary train, the journey occupying
from 4 P.M. on June 14 until an early hour on the following morning.
There we waited several hours for the special train from Adelaide; and
Mount Gambier was not reached until a late hour in the evening.

'Mount Gambier is a pleasing town of 5,000 inhabitants, in the centre
of a district of rich volcanic soil, thrown up over a sandstone
formation by the eruptions of a former period, when the surrounding
mountains were active volcanoes. The two principal craters are now
filled with lakes of great depth, appropriately named, from their
beautiful colouring, the Blue Lake and the Green Lake. Looking
outwards from the craters, a vast and fertile plain expands on all
sides, bounded by the ocean on the south, and by distant chains of
hills on the north. Here and there the plain is studded with other
cones, as distinctly defined as those of Mount Gambier, but on a
smaller scale.

'I will not enter in detail upon all the incidents of the opening of
the railway. We were greeted by the school children with a stirring
rendering of the National Anthem. We travelled a short distance on the
line, and were banqueted in the evening. I replied for the visitors,
and preached federation. In the interval between the opening of the
railway and the banquet we went out to see a run with the Mount
Gambier drags. The timber fencing would be thought desperate riding in
an ordinary English hunting-field. The doubles in and out of a road
are decidedly formidable.

'We visited the Wesleyan Chapel at Mount Gambier. The minister
described the excellent organisation which enables him to give
effective spiritual supervision over a wide district. In the afternoon
travelled by special train to Narracoorte. Had some interesting
conversation on the land question. From the railway traffic point of
view monopolies in land were severely criticised. Where tracts of
100,000 or 200,000 acres are in the hands of a single proprietor