[Illustration: KANGAROO HUNT.]

[Illustration: CATTLE-HUNTING.]

Ballarat, the centre of one of the chief mining districts, is
connected now by railway with Melbourne, so that in the interval of
only four hours one passes from the commercial metropolis to the "City
of Gold." Over the fertile belt of cultivated lands that surrounds
Melbourne, through rugged rocks and barren sands, runs this road, on
which one meets crowds of pedestrians, many of them barefoot, the sole
capital of each a tent and a pickaxe. Nearing the mines, the aspect of
everything is changed: whole forests of trees demolished as if by a
thunderbolt; rivers turned out of their natural bed; fertile meadows
laid waste; gaping chasms and frightful depths here and there, in
which are men toiling half naked, begrimed with mud, and fierce,
reckless, cadaverous faces that tell of hardships and strife and sin
in the eager pursuit of riches. Ballarat was at first only a
mining-camp of immense size, and its environs are still occupied by
tents, where transient visitors find very passable accommodations. But
the city proper, now some sixteen years old, with a population already
of thirty thousand, is an exact transcript of Melbourne, with
beautiful dwellings, and broad streets thronged with carriages by day
and lighted with gas by night. It boasts already its clubs and
theatres, its banks and libraries and reading--rooms, where the
successful miner may invest his earnings, cultivate his intellect and
seek recreation for his leisure hours.

[Illustration: COMPANIONS OF THE HUNT.] There are over two thousand
mining districts in Australia, of which one of the richest is "Black