Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/169

 which Brisbane stands, where it grows in great profusion. On the lawn beyond, two great black swans were feeding, looking oddly incongruous. The various schools have their main lecture rooms and laboratories grouped round an artificial lake in the middle of the grounds. Residential denominational colleges are erected on grants of land within the University precincts. One of them, the Methodist College, we visited through the kindness of the wife of the President, who showed us over the buildings.

It was vacation, and all was swept and garnished, but we saw the little chapel, the dining-hall, library, and the men's rooms. All was very pleasant and comfortable, with fine views over Melbourne, and all was as unlike as possible from the dreamy, stately old halls where our English boys go and learn to be luxurious and extravagant at home, and also learn other things which after all cannot be learnt elsewhere. We were present at the conferring of some honorary degrees at the University. It was a gay and picturesque scene, with the doctors' scarlet gowns on the platform; and what we missed in the ancient academic atmosphere that gives to such functions their impressiveness at home, was compensated for by the lively interest and enthusiasm of the visitors by whom the hall was