Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/111

 between thick coals of the best quality. It appears to me to have been taken from near the outcrop, or at a little depth from the air. No woody, earthy, or sedimentary matter occurs in this sample, and although far less valuable than Nos. 1 and 2 (samples from another part of the colony), yet it is quite equal to much of the coal used on the North German railways, and is (although inferior) a true coal—measure coal, and not a lignite. No evidence of the ligneous structure could be observed under the microscope. It is to be regretted that such very small samples of coal were furnished for examination. Larger pieces would have been much more satisfactory to study."

On the evening of the third day, after passing the Carnamah lakes, which contain large salt deposits, we reached the farmhouse of a Mr. Long, where, as everywhere else along the road, we were hospitably accommodated with sleeping quarters and the best the larder afforded. Here Mr. Kellett, the Company's mineralogist, left us, and Mr. Stafford, the Com­pany's engineer, and I went forward in Mr. Keane's buggy. The driver of the latter amused me by his racy converse as we all sat down at the common table to tea. He was talking of having overtaken a Chinaman whilst crossing the dreary sand plain alone in the buggy earlier in the day. Apologising for the momentary weakness, he confessed that he had at first thought of offering him a "lift," but at once said to himself, "No, you nasty beast; I'd see you hanged first." I asked him if the man had been an aboriginal instead of a Mongolian whether his decision would have been any different, and he confessed it would. This will illustrate how deep-rooted in the minds of the "bone and sinew" of this country is the hatred of the "yellow agony." There is not much love lost in the feelings with which the working class regard the "niggers," as they call the natives; but the slightly more humanitarian light in which they are viewed is due to the existence of a sneaking remembrance that the latter are the original owners of the soil and the whites themselves only interlopers.