of the sun is all-powerful, rainfall abundant, and vegetation prolific,
the type will not only be more rapidly developed, but that it will be
pronounced in bodily form, in tongue, and in temperament. One of the
reasons compelling towards such conclusion is the decided desire--nay, the
ambition--on the part of native-born Australians to do glad and seemly
homage to the sun.

If a traveller from distant and friendly lands were to accept as germs of
a type those who sport in the surf at fashionable watering-places, he
might infer from the display of brown backs and shoulders that Australia
had not escaped a smudge of aboriginal blood. But this ardently
cultivated tint is notoriously impermanent. Contradictory as it may be,
the most earnest advocates of the "White Australia" principle use more
than the average quantity of oil, which makes the skin to shine and
embrown under the influence of the much-loved sun. Do not their shoulders
bear testimony to the sun's wholesome salutations, and does not the too
fair and thin-skinned individual smart under his peeling and display envy
against the favoured ones who burn to the tint of old copper? Naturally,
those who have the most intense longing for a coloured skin, who
persistently seek to acquire it by exposure to the sun seconded by
anointings, will prevail. In the course of a few generations--it would be
idle to say how many--the type will be fixed and the unguent superfluous;
in the meantime the use of coco-nut oil has become one of the confirmed
customs of the country, as in Fiji and elsewhere in the Pacific.

If "beauty born of murmuring sound" may enhance the charms of maidenhood,
is it too much to expect that sunburn, fervently desired, may not only
permanently darken the complexion, but affect the mien of the race? And
thus in years to come the white Australian may be of the past--transformed
physically by the supremacy of soil and sun, and improved in disposition