Our journey around the world; an illustrated record of a year's travel of forty thousand . lo-Saxon. I feel that it is necessary to be cautious in recording myimpressions of the English race in Australia lest I lay myselfopen to the same charges which I am tempted to bringoftentimes against other hasty travelers who have skippedthrough America at the rate of a mile a minute and thenmade up their minds that they know all about it. My warmAmerican blood sometimes boils with not a little indignation;as I hear our institutions slurred and our public men de- IN THE VANGUARD OF CIVILIZATION.
Our journey around the world; an illustrated record of a year's travel of forty thousand . lo-Saxon. I feel that it is necessary to be cautious in recording myimpressions of the English race in Australia lest I lay myselfopen to the same charges which I am tempted to bringoftentimes against other hasty travelers who have skippedthrough America at the rate of a mile a minute and thenmade up their minds that they know all about it. My warmAmerican blood sometimes boils with not a little indignation;as I hear our institutions slurred and our public men de- IN THE VANGUARD OF CIVILIZATION. 77 famed by those who know nothing about either one or theother. So I must be careful not to raise the blood of anyoneelse to the boiling point with unfounded criticisms. Still, aseveryone must give his impressions, I would say that theColonies, so far as I have seen them and talked with repre-sentative Australians, strikes me as being in a period corre-sponding to the Colonial days of America before the gloriousera of 1776 dawned upon us. Not that the Australian Colonies are 100 years behind. IN THE GROUNDS OP GOVERNMENT HOUSE, SYDNEY. the times by any means. They are fully abreast of the mostrecent civilization. All the appliances and inventions andelegancies of civilized life are found here, and I imagine thata new invention of Edison, or a labor-saving contrivance ofMcCormick, would be introduced quite as soon into theseprogressive, go-ahead colonies as they would in any part ofAmerica, and far more rapidly than they would be likely tobe introduced into England. The fashions, too, are as recent,for aught I know; the store windows are certainly as ele-gant, the streets of such cities as Melbourne are as wide,and the public buildings as magnificent as any that can be 78 VAST DESERTS AND UNWATERED PLAINS. found in all the world. Yet I am reminded every day that in some respects Australia is very much like North America In the good old Colony daysWhen we lived under the King.
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