Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/142

 "billy" to boil the water for the weak tea that is the invariable accompaniment of all meals. There is always plenty of dry wood in that dry climate, and generally a little shelter is put up, with a rough table and benches, sometimes a tank for rain water, but this, when it is there, has a way of being rusty. On this occasion time demanded our return, for we were lunching with one of the University professors, so we came back to the city that is only less pastoral than its hills, and were deposited at our destination by the kind new acquaintances, who had devoted a long morning to us.

Our hosts lived in a charming bungalow on the side of a hill, the garden was full of early spring flowers, jonquils and other bulbs. Their guest house was detached, as it were, in a little garden of its own, which seemed a particularly pleasant way of entertaining one's friends, giving a sense of freedom both to visitors and hosts. In the drawing-room was a big bowl of camellias, which flourish in the open air in Australia. Our host and hostess came of one of the oldest Australian families; that is, their daughter told us her grandfather came over in 1837 and her grandmother three years later. Life was a hard thing in those days. To begin with, there was the six months' voyage in the old sailing ships. In their early