characteristic with the scene in which it took place.
As we neared Melbourne the wet roads of the morning had already dried and we were swept home in a cloud of dust. We arrived in time for a very late tea, and went on to dine at one of those pleasant colonial houses, whose warm friendliness and lavish hospitality is so homelike and yet so un-English.
The next day, after lunching at Government House, we visited the zoological gardens. This was the first unpleasant example of Australian weather; it was like a nasty March day, with gusts of cold wind sweeping up swirling clouds of blinding, stinging dust. It only lasted one day as a weather sample, but it was a singularly objectionable day, with a kind of parching quality in the air.
On this occasion we pursued a fruitless quest on which we had already exercised considerable energies since our arrival in Australia. We were very anxious to see a live platypus, that curious little hairy animal, with the bill of a duck, which burrows, or used to burrow, for it is becoming very rare, in Australian river-banks. We were told that if we wanted to see a platypus we must go to Tasmania, there were plenty there, but this was not part of our programme; however, there was
