THE NOMAD OF THE AUSTRALIAN INTERIOR _On the cover_

_Sketch-Map of Australia on pages vi and vii._

[Illustration: Map of Australia]

[Illustration: KOOKABURRAS. _Page_ 59.]

[Illustration: SNOWY MOUNTAINS NEAR THE SITE OF THE FEDERAL CAPITAL.
PAGE 25.]

AUSTRALIA

CHAPTER I

ITS BEGINNING

A "Sleeping Beauty" land--The coming of the English--Early
explorations--The resourceful Australian.

The fairy-story of the Sleeping Beauty might have been thought out by
someone having Australia in his mind. She was the Sleeping Beauty among
the lands of the earth--a great continent, delicately beautiful in her
natural features, wonderfully rich in wealth of soil and of mine, left
for many, many centuries hidden away from the life of civilization,
finally to be wakened to happiness by the courage and daring of English
sailors, who, though not Princes nor even knights in title, were as
noble and as bold as any hero of a fairy-tale.

How Australia came to be in her curious isolated position in the very
beginning is not quite clear. The story of some of the continents is
told in their rocks almost as clearly as though written in books. But
Australia is very, very old as a continent--much older than Europe or
America or Asia--and its story is a little blurred and uncertain partly
for that reason.

Look at the map and see its shape--something like that of a pancake with
a big bite out of the north-eastern corner. In the very old days
Australia was joined to those islands on the north--the East Indies--and
through them to Asia; but it was countless ages ago, for the animals and
the plants of Australia have not the least resemblance to those of Asia.
They represent a class quite distinct in themselves. That proves that
for a very long time there has been no land connection between Australia
and Asia; if there had been, the types of flower and of beasts would be
more nearly kindred. There would be tigers and elephants in Australia
and emus in Asia, and the kangaroo and other marsupials would probably
have disappeared. The marsupial, it may be explained, is one of the
mammalian order, which carries its young about in a pouch for a long
time after they are born. With such parental devotion, the marsupials
would have little chance of surviving in any country where there were
carnivorous animals to hunt them down; but Australia, with the exception
of a very few dingo