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RAMBLES IN AUSTRALIA

formance, and would compare favourably with that of most English churches.

After the service we were to lunch with the State Premier, and his car was waiting for us. The chauffeur was not the uniformed and correct personage, who drives our cars at home, but, as befits a democratic country, a genial and friendly soul, who having bade us welcome to the car, whirled us up to Mount Lawley, throwing occasional information at us over his shoulder. Mount Lawley is a pleasant suburb of Perth, if one can talk of suburbs where all is suburban; it lies upon the slopes of the Swan River, and commands an inspiriting view of the city, spreading out far and wide over its hills in vigorous new growth. This Australian household in which we were guests had a charmingly patriarchal atmosphere, for three generations sat at table: a delightful, picturesque old couple, who had come out to Australia in those hard and grinding early days, before a colonist had his bread buttered, and his house built for him immediately on his arrival.

It was on this occasion that we saw for the first time those formidable, but insignificant-looking Australian pests, the white ant. We had gone out to see our host's collection of wallabies, large, brown, rat-like creatures, with the hind legs of a