planted under the very shadow of forests where roam in all their savage freedom herds of wild cattle and their wilder masters; and out from the rocks and boulders of the most rugged spots rise clusters of the graceful umbrella palm, with a foliage, fern-like and feathery, of the loveliest emerald, and a cone expanding like a lady’s fan.  The odor of English cowslips mingles with the spicy aroma of tropical fruits, and the perpetual snow of-lofty peaks is reflected on fields of golden maize and on meadows that gleam and glitter in the bright sunlight as if paved with emeralds.  It is contrast, not similitude, that attracts the eye, novelty more than beauty, and quaintness rather than such gorgeous sights as one meets everywhere within the tropics.

[Illustration:  ABORIGINES OF THE EASTERN COAST.]

The harbors are very marvels of commodiousness, that of Port Jackson, the entrance to Sydney, being fifteen miles long.  It is landlocked on both sides, without a shoal or rock to mar its perfectness, and broad enough to afford safe anchorage to all the navies of the world.  Here ride at anchor vessels of almost every nation, their gay pennons flaunting in the breeze, while worming their way in and out among the shipping may be seen multitudes of native boats made of bark, quaint as frail, and looking for all the world like a shoal of soldiers’ cocked hats.  A man on land carries his tiny craft on his shoulders with less difficulty, apparently, than the boat carries him on the water.  Rowing one seems about as difficult an operation as balancing one’s self on a straw would, be; but it has an especial point of merit—­it never sink, only purls, and an Australian takes a good ducking as nonchalantly as he smokes his pipe.  The natives usually paddle in companies of three, and when one of the triad is purled the other two come to the rescue.  One on each side taking a hand of their unlucky comrade, and reseating him, they move on rapidly as before, cutting the blue water with their slender paddles and enlivening the scene by occasional songs.  The presence of numerous sharks in these waters is the chief drawback to the pleasures of boating, and many an ill-fated oarsman pays the forfeit of life or limb for his temerity in venturing out too far.  The nose of the shark is his most vulnerable part; and the natives, who eat this sea-monster as willingly as he eats them, often inflict a fatal wound by slinging a huge stone at his nose and battering it to a jelly as he rises out of the water.  The flesh is eaten raw by the aborigines in their wild state, but the more civilized “burn it,” as they say, “like white men;” that is, they cut off huge lumps of the flesh, lay them before a fire to roast, gnaw off the surface as fast as it burns, and put down the remainder to toast again until the appetite is glutted.

[Illustration:  KING TATAMBO.]

[Illustration:  DAUGHTER OF KING TATAMBO.]