XVII.
Return to Perth—The Weld Club—A Queen's Birthday Levée—Gay-plumaged Birds—Rottnest—A West Australian General Gordon—"What for me sorry?"
When I returned to Perth, on May 24th, after my cross-country trip through the region discovered by Sir George Grey, I expanded with the pride of a full-blown explorer, and almost expected to hear a re-echo of the glad strain which greeted Sir George more than half a century ago when, utterly exhausted by famine and fatigue, he was cheered on to cover the few remaining miles between what is now Geraldton and the capital by the familiar sound of the bugle-call of his old regiment issuing from the Perth barracks. If he wept tears at Adelaide at the recollection of his experiences as administrator of the infantile destinies of South Australia fifty years before, he might well do so over the knowledge that the wilderness through which he penetrated with so much of anguish and privation even earlier still is now in all likelihood to "blossom as the rose"—the rose of prosperous settlement and peaceable development.
The Queen's birthday festivities were in full swing when I once more re-entered the hospitable portals of the Weld Club, whose name commemorates the popular Governor who passed away in his English retirement a few months after my visit to the colony, much to the regret, I am sure, of all West Australians, by whom his modest personality and progressive policy were duly appreciated. The colony has not yet found its feet after the plunge from Downing-street domination into self-governing blessedness. Old habits will assert themselves under the altered régime, and the result is that "Government House" invitations are received with awe and
