idge. The course is somewhat crooked, but
there is a good view of it from the banks, and a rowing match between
two of the crack clubs is sure to attract a large crowd."

CHAPTER IX.

"THE LAUGHING JACKASS"--AUSTRALIAN SNAKES AND SNAKE STORIES.

Our friends returned to their hotel, but, before leaving them, their
host arranged to call for them after breakfast the next morning, for a
drive among the parks and around the suburbs of the city.

The drive came off as agreed upon, and a very pleasant one it was. They
visited the Botanic Garden, which is on the banks of the Yarra, and
seemed to contain specimens of nearly all the trees on the habitable
globe. Harry said he wondered how elms and oaks could have attained the
size of some that he saw, when he remembered that the city had its
beginning in 1835. It was explained that all exotic trees grew with
great rapidity in the climate of Melbourne, and not only exotics but
natives. The climate seems adapted to almost any kind of vegetable
production.

Our friends found cork trees and palms growing almost side by side with
the birch, the pine, and the spruce. Among other things, their attention
was attracted to some beautiful fern trees, which were fully twenty feet
high, and there were climbing plants in great profusion, some of them
clinging to the trees, and others fastened to trellis work.

[Illustration: TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN.]

Almost every kind of tropical fruit tree was represented in the garden,
and the gentleman who led the party said that the garden had been of
great use in distributing exotic fruit trees through the colony, after
first settling the question whether they would exist in the climate of
Victoria. Every variety of orange was there, and the orange is among the
most abundant of the fruits growing in the colony. Apricots, peaches,
pears, mangosteens, the custard apple, mangoes, and other fruits have
found a home in Victoria, and demonstrated that they can exist within
its limits.

"We were unwilling," said Harry in his journal, "to leave the Botanic
Garden and go elsewhere, as there were so many attractive things to be
seen, but time pressed, and whenever our host gave the word we proceeded
with him. From the Botanic Garden we went to the Fitzroy Gardens, which
are situated in the eastern part of the town, and were to some extent a
repetition of the Botanic Garden, though not entirely so. The Fitzroy is
more like a park than a garden; it