Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/161

 hero of that particular voyage of the "Sonoma." This has been as hot a day as I have ever experienced anywhere, and the tea-drinking has been enormous. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon we were attracted by a sign reading, "Strawberries and cream," and the place was crowded with women shoppers drinking tea. No one was buying ice-cream, or the "American soda-water" advertised, but all were drinking tea; every woman was served with a pot, and usually she drank two cups. This is the universal rule here; tea in the afternoon. When we went back to the hotel, the girl clerk was taking her afternoon tea, which had been brought to her from the kitchen. By-the-way, business is picking up at the Grand Central; thirty-one came in to luncheon today. The hotel could easily accommodate three hundred. All the other hotels we have visited have been crowded. Before I leave Adelaide I must ask some one what the trouble is with the Grand Central. Perhaps one trouble is, it has rooms with baths, and other up-to-date improvements The best exhibit at the Adelaide zoölogical garden is the roses; I doubt if the famous rose show at Portland, Oregon, can show a greater variety or finer flowers. It seems to me that one-half of the area of Adelaide is taken up with parks, zoölogical gardens, botanical gardens, hospitals, museums, playgrounds, and other public utilities, and in the mountains not far away is a national park of thousands of acres. The people here do not neglect exercise or amusement. You see almost as many people in the parks on Monday as on Sunday Another peculiarity here is that in all small orchestras the flute is used instead of the clarinet. I