AUSTRALIAN ROMANCES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1721, 7 April 1888, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN ROMANCES.

la his reminiscences of Victoria, Dr Cameron Leea says:-—" Though the country itself is by no means romantic, the lives of many of its inhabitants have been so. I have listened with wonder—not, I confess sometimes unmixed with doubt—to the J3oet extraordinary stories of the fortunes and misfortunes of men, of millionaires who have made lucky speculations in mines, and squatters whose flocks and herds are countless. The careers of some of those one meets are stranger than anything pourtrayed in fiction. I have heard of a man strolling into a. land sale without a penny in his pocket, buying recklessly, selling next day at an immense profit, and so laying the foundation of a great fortune; of a shoeblack in a hotel who invested his savings in silvermine (shares when they were at a low ebb, and who is now a large landholder , and silver king. Such tales are constantly related for the regalement of the traveller. I was pointed out an old gentleman who as a boy ran away from home in Dundee to see King | George IT. land at Leith. Afraid to j return to his parents, he took service as a boy on board a ship, came to the colony, subsequently went Home, purchased the very vessel that brought his Majesty to Scotland, and sailed her out with a freight of goods, from which he made such profit that he was able to buy land, and he is now a wealthy man. Men who have also been long in the colony are fond of telling their adventures in the olden time. 'l've swam, sir, the Murray holding on to my horse's tail.' ' I'vr lain flat on a plain in a thunderstorm sir, and felt my hair standing on end with the electricity streaming through it!' 'I heard of some laid on the Billybongs that was given up because

of the blacks. I went down there with a bullock dray and took the station, held my own, and here I am.' One gets rather tired at times of this kind of thing, also of endless talk about sheep, four tooth rams, store cattle, and fats. Yet withal, the people are interesting and the bores are few, though the few are very bad."