holdings, and settled on the fringe of ever-increasing Kokiana.
The social growth was organic now; like the polyp, ever throwing off new life from within, not to wander forth in sporadic adventure, but to cleave to the ever-widening fringe—like the associated action of animalcules, that have thrown up England out of the abyss of the Northern Ocean, and set her round with glowing walls of chalk—like the house-to-house, if not hand-to-hand, labour of coral insects, that have dotted the glassy waters of the Pacific with gem-like isles, encircled in rings of coral.
The young men and maidens of Kokiana, with their friends, attached here a fifty-acre block, and there another to the far-spreading sea of green, until the plains beyond the valley were brought under the influence of organized labour. Eventually extremes met, history repeated itself, the tides of the new system spread over the wastes left high and dry by the old. The deserted selections were absorbed, and where one family had starved, five flourished in peace and profusion.
Beyond Kokiana and Hygeia, towards the Silverbourne, Fabricia was later established, a settlement of men of various trades—boot-makers, clothiers, smiths of all sorts. In the centre were airy workshops; in front, on either side, a row of cottages, each set in a "garden of cucumbers" and other growths that delight the eye and palate of man. Far away beyond, on either side, extended the garden-orchards, vineyards, and meadows of "The Jolly Smiths," as the farmers of Fabricia came to be called. Four hours a day each worked at his special occupation, earning enough to support his family. The remainder of the day the settler was free to cultivate his plot and to remember that he was no longer a machine, but a son of Nature and of God—a brother of his kind.
