Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/163

 *tralia was originally a penal colony. In the days prior to 1776, England, instead of keeping evil-doers in prison at home, sent them to work on the farms or plantations in America. After the Revolution, when convicts could no longer be sent to America, they were sent to Australia. In 1787, ten ships were sent to Australia. The ships contained a thousand persons, eight hundred of them convicts, both men and women, and the remainder were soldiers and marines to guard them. The fleet landed at the present site of Sydney, and thus that fine city of more than half a million people was founded The boomerang, of which we hear much, is a native Australian weapon made of hard wood. It is made in peculiar shape, and the black fellows (according to the story) throw it in such a wonderful way that it hits the object it is aimed at, and returns to the hand of the thrower. I doubt the story; such a feat as that described is impossible. We have seen no native blacks here, and they are scarce in the interior The years 1839 and 1840 were years of terrible drouth in Australia, and cattle and sheep were killed for their hides and tallow. Ten years later came a drouth still more terrible. Then in February came a day which is remembered as Black Thursday. The wind had been blowing a hot gale for days, and somehow a fire started. This swept over the parched earth with relentless fury, and the country was almost burned up; forest trees, farmhouses, wild animals, cattle and sheep, and many men, women and children, were consumed. When rain finally came, it came in such torrents that nearly everything left by the fire was swept away by