Among our passengers was an American with a unique vocation.  Unique is a strong word, but I use it justifiably if I did not misconceive what the American told me; for I understood him to say that in the world there was not another man engaged in the business which he was following.  He was buying the kangaroo-skin crop; buying all of it, both the Australian crop and the Tasmanian; and buying it for an American house in New York.  The prices were not high, as there was no competition, but the year’s aggregate of skins would cost him L30,000.  I had had the idea that the kangaroo was about extinct in Tasmania and well thinned out on the continent.  In America the skins are tanned and made into shoes.  After the tanning, the leather takes a new name—­which I have forgotten—­I only remember that the new name does not indicate that the kangaroo furnishes the leather.  There was a German competition for a while, some years ago, but that has ceased.  The Germans failed to arrive at the secret of tanning the skins successfully, and they withdrew from the business.  Now then, I suppose that I have seen a man whose occupation is really entitled to bear that high epithet—­unique.  And I suppose that there is not another occupation in the world that is restricted to the hands of a sole person.  I can think of no instance of it.  There is more than one Pope, there is more than one Emperor, there is even more than one living god, walking upon the earth and worshiped in all sincerity by large populations of men.  I have seen and talked with two of these Beings myself in India, and I have the autograph of one of them.  It can come good, by and by, I reckon, if I attach it to a “permit.”

Approaching Adelaide we dismounted from the train, as the French say, and were driven in an open carriage over the hills and along their slopes to the city.  It was an excursion of an hour or two, and the charm of it could not be overstated, I think.  The road wound around gaps and gorges, and offered all varieties of scenery and prospect—­mountains, crags, country homes, gardens, forests—­color, color, color everywhere, and the air fine and fresh, the skies blue, and not a shred of cloud to mar the downpour of the brilliant sunshine.  And finally the mountain gateway opened, and the immense plain lay spread out below and stretching away into dim distances on every hand, soft and delicate and dainty and beautiful.  On its near edge reposed the city.

We descended and entered.  There was nothing to remind one of the humble capital, of buts and sheds of the long-vanished day of the land-boom.  No, this was a modern city, with wide streets, compactly built; with fine homes everywhere, embowered in foliage and flowers, and with imposing masses of public buildings nobly grouped and architecturally beautiful.