Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/277

 We had now left the mild Australian winter behind us, and were in the height of an English summer, wearing the thinnest summer clothes, though Brisbane counted it as early spring. Brisbane is a most beautifully situated town, set among hills washed by the river, which runs into the sea eighteen miles away. Its many handsome public buildings are fronted by gardens full of tropical vegetation, its broad arcaded streets, filled with people, prosperous-looking like all Australians. In the charming suburbs on the slopes of the green hills, the houses are all built high on piles, each capped by its inverted saucer to ward off the depredations of white ants. The deep, verandahed houses are screened from the sun by straw blinds.

Politically, Queensland is the youngest of all the Colonies. A convict settlement was founded at Moreton Bay by Governor Brisbane in 1824, but it languished and was soon afterwards abandoned. In 1842 Moreton Bay was proclaimed a free settlement. Not till 1859 was state separated from New South Wales by Letters Patent establishing Moreton Bay as a new colony under the name of Queensland. The constitution of the colony is modelled on that of New South Wales; that is to say, there is an Assembly or Lower House, whose members are salaried and elected