Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/42

 is a holiday at Christmas here, lasting two weeks. There is no severely cold weather, and the people are not compelled to spend a great deal for fuel. Wages are not as high as with us, but living is cheaper. I had heard so much of the low cost of beef in Australia that I inquired the price at several markets. The best cuts sold at twenty cents per pound: altogether, meat is cheaper than in the United States, but the difference is not so great as I expected it to be Everything indicates that the Australians are good people, and hospitable, enterprising, and intelligent; I have only admiration for them, until they begin to talk. Then their pronunciation is a reproach to me. I have always called it Austraylia; they call it Austrylia. "Well, old chap," I heard a man say to a friend in Sydney, on parting, "tyke care of yourself!" There is a woman on this ship with three little children. To look at her, she seems like any other worthy woman: devoted, unselfish, kind, polite, and always busy. But when you hear her talk, it is different from anything you ever heard. There are two little girls on board, and they are very kind to the mother with three children. It is very nice to see them caring for the baby, and running errands for the tired mother, but as soon as they begin to talk they do not seem so much like little girls you have known. "I was a bit groggy meself yesterday," I heard one of them say to the mother. She meant that she was seasick The English themselves do not agree on pronunciations; Cambridge University authorizes one pronunciation of many words, and Oxford another. I can understand how dialects originate with people speaking the same