Page:The Art of Living in Australia.djvu/32

 xviii PREFACE. Australian will be. But reflections of this kind can only be in the right direction by bearing in mind the ever-present climatic conditions. Climate is of all forces the most irresistible ; for, on the one hand, the Great Desert of Sahara could not be crossed in an Arctic costume and on Esquimaux diet ; nor, on the other, could the Polar regions be explored in a Hindoo garb and on Oriental fare. And though blood is thicker than water, yet the resistless in- fluence of a semi-tropical range of temperature will be to imprint on the descendants of the present inhabitants of Australia some marked peculiarities of skin-colour, of facial expression, of lingual accent, and perhaps even of bodily conformation. Quite recently an observing writer, in a keenly analytical if somewhat facetious article, gave it as his opinion that the coming Australians will be as fol- lows : — " They will not be so entirely agricultural as " the Americans were; they will be horsemen, not " gig-drivers. Descended from adventurers, not from " Puritans, and eager, as men of their climate must ■' be, for pleasant lives, they will thirst for dependent " possessions, for gardens where fortunes grow. The " early Americans were men of austere temper, who " led, on an ungrateful soil, lives of permanent hard- " ship. They had to fight the sea, the snow, the " forest, the Indians, and their own hearts. The " Australians, with a warmer climate, without Puritan