Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/355

 their generous kindness and hospitality too much cannot be said, and the very fact that you are ignorant of all they know is a bond. At home it is different. They are often a little on the defensive, because they have an idea that we shall assume superior airs and consider them "colonial"—a vague term of opprobrium. Then, too, our ways chill them; their open-handed, open-hearted hospitality is the natural thing there. In a country, where there is a perennial shortage of servants, nobody minds or regards it, if the hostess and daughter of the house change the plates, except in the richest and most sophisticated circles. We should put off a dinner-party if our servants were ill, because we are so hampered by hard-and-fast conventions, not so much because we are inhospitable, but because we must maintain an accepted standard—it must be impossible for an Australian quite to understand this.

A little stuffy lumbering train takes passengers and merchandise from the wharf to the foot of a steep hill that leads up to Darwin. But it was too beautiful to immure ourselves in it, so we walked to the shore, where a Government horse and cart had been commandeered on our behalf. Its reins were held by "Tommy," also in white ducks and all smiles. Tommy was the native