Guide Links Part 2

CHAPTER TWO
AUSTRALIA
I DON'T want to bore you with statistics and details of the numbers of people, the miles of country, and the geographical position of Australia. Nor do I propose to enlarge on the history of this huge and wonderful country, because you can all find out these details for yourselves in your own geography and history books. To me it is tremendously interesting, but if I did once start on writing up these things in detail for you there would be no end to it.
Some people are apt to think that history must of necessity mean stories and information about the happenings in ages past—in fact the very word rather implies something to do with :
" William the First    .    . 1066
William the Second .    . 1087
Henry the First    .    . 1100
and Stephen .    .    . 1138
and so on, mixed in with the Wars of the Roses, a little smattering of Henry the Eighth, interspersed with Queen Elizabeth, Oliver Cromwell, and the ups and downs of Parliaments and Kingdoms.
But the history of the foundation of Australia as a country is something far more vitally interesting in many ways, because it is all comparatively recent, and almost within the memory of people living to-day. Therefore, instead of feeling that the people you read of are like figures in a play, and rather unreal shadowy. people of the imagination, you can almost see in your mind's eye the interesting characters in Australian history, who, but a hundred years or so ago, were all living, planning,

58

------------------------------------------------------------------------
AUSTRALIA    5 9
working, and striving for this great newly found continent.
Much of this history is romantic, some of it is tragic and sad, but all of it is inspiring, showing as it does the magnificent courage of the men and women who ventured away from the shelter of their homeland, out literally into the unknown, with no knowledge or certainty of what life might hold in store for them.
They are stirring tales indeed, both of the finding and the settling of this great land. Captain Cook's voyage and ultimate landing in Australia in 1788 is an epic story in itself, and being what one might call " so lately " the details of it can be read and visualised so clearly. As you know, of course, he was not the actual " discoverer " of the country, for this had happened over a hundred years before his time. Those intrepid exploring seamen, the Portuguese and Spaniards, ventured to this far end of the world in 1605, when Captain de Quiros and Torres must actually have seen the land even though they did not set foot upon it.
So far as is known it was the Dutch navigator, William Janz, who was the first white man to land, right up in the north in the Gulf of Carpentaria, whilst Abel Tasman, who also discovered New Zealand, landed in Tasmania in the south in 164z. Then came an Englishman, William Dampier, who as Captain of His Majesty's ship Roebuck sailed round by New Guinea and landed and did a little exploring on the north-west side. He didn't think much of what he saw. He reported that it was the worst country he had ever seen and " quite unfit for settlement," and this had such a quelling effect on any would-be venturers that nobody came again from Britain for many years.
Then the big event came. Captain Cook, in H.M.S. Endeavour, sailed away across the sea to Hawaii. At the outset the voyage was exciting, because he started out not knowing his ultimate destination, as he was to

------------------------------------------------------------------------
60    GUIDE LINKS
receive sealed orders there on his arrival. On reaching Hawaii and opening his sealed orders he found that he was to sail westward and land on whatever land he should find there. So he sailed along the south-east coast, and, just missing sighting the most magnificent natural harbour in the world, he landed with his men in 5770 at a small cove, which they christened Botany Bay because of the lovely flowers there.
Later he explored farther north, surveying the coast of New South Wales and Queensland, making and leaving records that are of value even to-day. It was a tragic business that later, entirely for want of understanding, he was killed by some natives at Karakakoa Bay in the Island of Hawaii. It was sad that he was not longer spared to see the progress in the country that he found for us.
But his life did not lie on land and in the safety and comfort of home. His work and his career lay out on the high seas, struggling against the elements, bravely studying the winds and the tides, sailing uncharted waters—a venturer obeying his King's commands, a pioneer and an example of intrepid courage indeed.
Do you know what it feels like to look forward to something exciting for months, and then in the end, when " it ' happens, you just have to pinch yourself to make yourself realise that the moment has really come at last ? Well, that happened to me when we landed once again in dear Australia.
For over a year we had been thinking and planning to get over to Australia for the big Scout Jamboree, andwell—here we are, and it is lovely to be back on this continent again
DARWIN
On our last visit we had landed first in the south, at Sydney, and this time we came to the north, to Darwin, which is perhaps one of the most romantic of landing-

------------------------------------------------------------------------
DARWIN    6I
places in the world, for it is the most out of the world in one way and the most in the world in another 1
I suppose it was talked of in the newspapers more than any other known town in the world at the time when Amy Johnson (Mrs. Mollison) landed there, after making her marvellous flight from England to Australia ; and again during the big Air Race it was naturally the first Australian town where those plucky competitors landed as they hurled themselves across the globe from Mildenhall to Melbourne.
Now Darwin is put " on the map " for all time as being the landing-place and jumping-off place for the
Imperial Airways Liners, which are to carry the air mail each week from the Old Country to her large growing-up daughter dominion.
The immense journey means, of course, flying over thousands of miles of land, and then this stage of the voyage from Singapore to Darwin takes the flyers over 1,800 miles of sea—what the newspapers call " shark-infested sea." It is quite true that there are sharks, whales, sea snakes, and all manner of things in that sea, and the thought of coming down in it and being stranded in it does not bear thinking about ; but nowadays, as always, it does not do to anticipate trouble and to " cross bridges before you get to them," and this bit of sea will hold no worse terrors for these heroic pilots than did the crossing of the English Channel for the first men to fly the twenty miles across to France, only thirty years ago. Talking of that wide stretch of sea that we have come across in our ship from Java to Darwin, I learned that the newspapers of the whole world have followed the inaccuracies of one another in always calling that bit the ` Timor Sea." I don't quite always believe what I read in the papers, but without thinking I presumed it was called the Timor Sea because, owing to its being liable to be stormy and dangerous, people would feel " timorous " and frightened about going across it

------------------------------------------------------------------------
62    GUIDE LINKS
This has turned out to be an entirely false fabrication of my brain, for really it is an outlying part of the Indian Ocean, and the actual Timor Sea is so called because it is the small piece of ocean enclosed between the fairly large islands of the Dutch East Indies called Timor, Flores, and Sandalwood.
Darwin is a far bigger place than I had expected. I thought to find a bare sandy foreshore, with just a few rough bungalows and a pier, and only a handful of people, but instead of that as we drew into the bay we found the shores all thickly covered with high green scrub.
Close by the beaches it was mainly mangrove, and then farther inland there were bigger trees, though not the prosperous fruitful sort that we had seen in such profusion on the shores of Java and Bali only two days before. Having imagined the place to be very dry and dusty it was a real surprise to find such good vegetation and to find some fine flowering trees too, as well as ordinary flowers that can be grown in people's gardens if they will take the trouble to plant them
There are about 1,000 white people living now in Darwin, and they live in bungalows scattered over a pretty wide area, with broad and very unmade roads leading from one end to the other.
When we first came in sight of the pier there was nobody about. The place looked absolutely deserted as we anchored and hung about waiting for the doctor to come on board. You see when a ship arrives at any port the local doctor has to come and ascertain that nobody who is going to land has any infectious illness, so as to be quite sure that people do not bring disease along with them into the country.
Eventually just the one man came off in the one little boat from the pier head and then quite suddenly the queer thing happened, for the whole place seemed to come to life ! Cars appeared from nowhere, a small engine came puffing along pushing three trucks of goods

------------------------------------------------------------------------
DARWIN    63
ready to be loaded into our ship, quite a small crowd of people assembled to watch us warp up alongside the pier, and—would you believe it ? There was a Troop of Boy Scouts looking as smart as could be in uniform, and alongside stood four girls, in plain clothes to be sure, but with Guide badges on !
Having been welcomed by these new-found friends we then went off to see a " Corroboree " given by two parties of different tribes of aboriginals. These are the original black native people of Australia who lived on the continent long before it was discovered by Captain Cook. There used to be a large number of them, living an absolutely wild, uncivilised life, wandering as the spirit moved them and living simply on what they could find in the way of roots and plants, fruit and vegetable growth, and on what they could catch in the way of wild buffalo, kangaroo, opossum, lizards and so on. A man was telling me about their ways and customs, and I asked him whether they bothered to cook their food or if, supposing they killed a kangaroo, they would eat it raw as they would a coconut. His reply was that he " thought they might warm it a bit ! "
Somehow I don't think I should fancy tepid, half-cooked kangaroo, would you ?
As white people came and settled on the land these wild creatures fled before them, not because the white men drove them, but simply because they were entirely a savage race like animals, and they wanted to keep by themselves and away from other humans and could not bear civilisation creeping towards them. Their numbers decreased and now most of Australia has only its own white population in the east and south, but there are thousands of aboriginals still in the untouched middle and northern areas of this vast country. Many have probably never seen or been seen by white men, just as there are still large herds of wild buffalo too, out in the bush, which have never been chased or hunted.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
64    GUIDE LINKS
Gradually white people have pushed farther out into the wilder areas for grazing cattle, and thus a few of these black men have in some cases had to come into touch with civilisation out in the country, and people have taken to employing them as labourers and even as " house boys." Some of them are extremely good servants, thoughtful and honest, though others are quite useless and " untrainable." I heard of one case of a man called " Treacle " whose wife was called " Vinegar " and together they did all the work of their master.
After some months it was time for Treacle to have a little holiday, and this consisted of "going bush "—in other words, just going out into the bush and being entirely free, like a wild animal. He carefully found an understudy to take his place, and then off he went, walking alone smoking his pipe, carrying nothing, whilst Vinegar plodded after him carrying some flour and tea and sugar, and they vanished together for some time. His understudy was no good, and quietly left his new job, without a word, badly letting down Treacle's master.
These simple primitive people have some uncanny way of sending messages to each other, either by smoke signals, or by passing along " letters " from hand to hand, in the form of little sticks about a quarter of an inch round and four inches long, tapering at the ends. These have funny little marks and notches cut on them, and presumably writing in their language, even though there is no one known language for all these native people, each tribe having its own queer dialect.
So the news of the behaviour of Treacle's understudy was sent miraculously through the bush, and within two days Treacle had returned to his post, trudging back nobody knows how many miles, coming away from his beloved bush life, and renouncing his one holiday so that his master should not suffer any inconvenience. Well, I don't know what you think, but I think it was a good bit of self-sacrifice on the part of Treacle.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
DARWIN    65
To return to the Corroboree. You all know what a Jamboree is, of course, as we have had these huge gatherings for Scouts at intervals ever since 192o. The Chief Scout invented that name, and at the time people wondered what it meant, and the inventor himself wasn't very clear I He wanted to express that the meeting would be a big one, with people all jammed together in an enthusiastic crowd, getting to know each other, doing Scouting things, dancing and making a noise, and generally having a festive time. " And, anyway," he said, " what else would you call it ? "
The name Corroboree that had been used here in Australia was rather the root of this name, Jamboree, and it means a gathering of tribesmen, where they dance and make a noise and work themselves up with a wild enthusiasm. It is a very extraordinary affair, and has to be seen to be believed.
A group of about thirty men of the Larrakeah tribe first came on the scene, naked except for a scarlet loin cloth, and the whole of their huge black bodies painted with white stripes and spots and odd patterns, faces and all. We were all sitting, as audience, on scats facing an open sort of playground, and they came creeping out from behind bushes in the distance and advanced in a body, hopping and jumping about, and moving with a funny swaying motion, carrying long bamboo spears which they waved above their heads.
There was a queer droning noise going on as they moved, and then I saw amongst them one man blowing into a bamboo pipe about four feet long, and out of the end of it came this low soft humming noise, a cross between a clarionet and an unhappy cow 1 This simple instrument is called a "didgery doo. ' It has no notes and plays no tune, but just gives out this booming muttering noise to accompany the quaint primitive dancing.
The tribe then came right up and grouped themselves in front of us and began their dance, which consisted

------------------------------------------------------------------------
66    GUIDE LINKS
mainly in stamping, standing on one foot, and absolutely banging the other one down on the ground, all in unison, with great thuds, and twisting their bodies about and throwing their arms up in the air, with occasional wild shrieks.
They simply love doing it and went on and on untiringly, and when that one lot had finished their performance another crowd of men of the Bathurst Island tribe suddenly appeared from the other side of the compound and took their turn, with a priceless frog dance, where they all squatted down and hopped and jumped about exactly like ungainly, leggy, out-sized frogs.
Each man acted his part with great zest, and the whole affair went with a tremendous swing.
It was all most interesting to see, and though these Australian aboriginals have their own special antics, there is something similar in the whole affair to a Maori " haka " in New Zealand, or a Zulu " indaba " in Africa.
Of course, in all races, though the actual dance and dressing up, or fm-dressing, may vary and take its own individual form, this getting together and having music and dancing is, and always has been, a recreation for great enjoyment. Every one of you would probably have liked to have joined in with this enthralling " Corroboree " that we were given in Darwin, and certainly, there was no lack amongst those performers of enthusiasm and keenness to put up a good show in the true " party spirit."
We are doing what is called a " World Tour," but a better name for it would be a " Surprise Tour," for at every turn we have unexpected surprises sprung upon us. If you look at the map of Australia you will see that all round the north of it there are but few names of towns, and then if you have also had a chance of reading anything about it you will know that even those few names only mean a very small number of people, for there are

------------------------------------------------------------------------
DARWIN    67
only seven million people in the whole continent. There are thousands of square miles literally unexplored and uninhabited, and still further thousands of miles of the Northern Territory and of the northern part of Queensland only inhabited by black " Abos." This name is the short for aboriginals and is pronounced " abboze." After leaving Darwin we went eastwards across the immense Gulf of Carpentaria. Looking at it on the map, I wonder how long you would guess it took us to go across ? Actually we left Darwin in the middle of the night of Tuesday, and we arrived at Thursday Island at four in the afternoon on the following Friday—about the same length of time as it would take to get from London to Lisbon by sea. So that is something like a Gulf, isn't it ?
THURSDAY ISLAND
Midway across I received a wireless message from the Vice-President of the Guide Association of Thursday Island, saying : " Proposed programme on arrival stop Scouts native dance stop civic reception stop meeting with Committee stop Cub Guide Brownie Rally with displays stop three hours programme stop."
So that was that I One use has to Be Prepared for the unexpected at every turn on a tour like this, and if anybody had told me that this was the sort of thing we were going to meet with amongst isolated islands of North Australia I would just have thought their statement completely mad.
As we hove in sight of the pier on Thursday Island it looked as if bright scarlet flowers were growing in a row at the end of it, and as we got nearer these were surmounted by waving flags, and interspersed with blue. Then we saw that the scarlet was the stuff swathed round the nether portions of the Scouts, for here the men and boys of the native races living on the Islands all wear a long skirt called a " lava-lava." It is more fancifully

------------------------------------------------------------------------
68    GUIDE LINKS
arranged and draped round them than the " sarong " of the Malays, for the latter is just a piece of straight silk or printed material pulled round and tucked into itself at the waist, and it hangs down straight like a skirt ; but the lava-lava is looser and of far simpler cotton stuff ; and when the wearer wants his legs free for running or climbing about in boats he just tucks it all up round his waist and it looks as if he was dressed merely in a rather bunchy pair of bathing drawers.
To our astonishment there were about z 5 o of these boys and girls gathered together here to greet us, one Company of Guides, one Pack of Brownies, two Troops of Scouts, and one Pack of Cubs being from Thursday itself, and the rest having come over from Badu, Moa, Yorke Island, and Yam Island, miles and miles out of sight across the sea. They came in pearl-fishing luggers, and in some cases they had travelled well over one hundred miles.
Thursday Island is the main concentrating base where the shell-fishing fleet brings in its tons of mother-o'-pearl shell, which is then exported from there in large consignments to Japan, America, and Europe. In my ignorance, I had always imagined that these pearl-shell fishers were hunting for pearls. Nov I find that there is quite another story to be told, for it is the collecting of the shell that is the real industry, and it is picked up from the bottom of the sea and sold for large sums in the open market.
I tried to find out more about this shell-fishing business and gathered that divers, Japanese men mostly, know where those beds of shell-fish are. They are in beds like oysters, long rows and layers and probably acres of them, just off the edges of the coral reefs round the scattered islands, and the men dive down (" skin-diving " it is called because they use no diving apparatus and just go down in their bare skins), pick up a shell under their arm, bring it to the surface, and then take a

------------------------------------------------------------------------
THURSDAY ISLAND    69
'jeep breath and pop down again for another. They ire not allowed to keep a shell that is under a certain size, and so they have a little two-inch measure to guide them in their collection, and if when brought to the surface, the thing is too small, it is dropped back again, to live °and to grow into a proper-sized shell-fish in another year or two.
k When the boat is full enough, they land, and they boil the shell in huge forty-gallon cauldrons, take out all the fish from inside the shells and dry them for future coniumption. The shell, being empty of its former inhabitant, is clean from the boiling as well, and it sells it the rate of L8o a ton.
I tried to think of what all this mother-o'-pearl could be used for, and the only things that I could visualise were knife handles, buckles, and buttons. Actually it gets ground down to powder, and is used in making various sorts of paints.
Then, you may ask, where does the pearl come in ? Well, the finding of pearls is an absolute chance, and it can never be counted on at all. The Japanese divers who are doing all this shell collecting are allowed to take them as their perquisite when they happen to find them, and merchants from Paris come to Thursday Island once a year to buy them. Even in some tons of shell there may be no actual pearl found at all, and then suddenly a diver may chance on something perfect. A few months ago one pearl was found which was sold for L7oo, but nobody can count on finding a pearl from one month's end to another.
To come back to our Thursday Island Scout and Guide Rally. This was a most unique affair, and the Chief Scout and I shall never forget it, partly because of its unexpectedness, but also because the displays were so out of the ordinary, consisting amongst other things of a kangaroo hunt and a wild-pig chase. For one thing, you see, there was no need for these Scouts to dress up

------------------------------------------------------------------------
70    GUIDE LINKS
for their parts, because they were acting themselves so to speak I Amongst other things they did a very attrac-
tive sort of musical dance, showing the different uses of
Scout staves. They pranced round to the beating of an old paraffin tin doing duty as a drum, and then at a given
signal they dashed into groups of six, sticking their six staves together as a tripod for hanging a billy can over a fire.
Then they depicted the putting up of a flag staff, and making a stretcher ; this was all being done with a prancing sort of step dance to a rhythmic tune beaten on a tin can, and it was most effective.
The Guide Company of Thursday Island had only just lately been started ; but a Company of native Guides
from the neighbouring island of Badu gave a first-rate
signalling display. These people are of an entirely different race from the Australian black aboriginals.
They are called Torres Straits Islanders, and they are
presumably Polynesian in origin, for though they have now inhabited these islands for generations, their
ancestors came across from other islands of the Polynesian groups farther out in the Archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean, so they are not Australian at all, except by legal right as British subjects.
They were dear people to look at and to talk to, with rather big faces and wide mouths, and with very fuzzy, very black hair, and all wearing just the same dark blue uniform as we do in England, and the same badges for cooking, laundry, needlework, and swimming.
Have you ever looked into the eyes of a black spaniel dog when he has been naughty, and is asking you not to be cross with him ? You know the saying :
"A woman, a spaniel, a walnut tree,
The more you beat them the better they be."
A spaniel seems to know this and carries an appealing expression in his eye. He is, I think, the most affec-

------------------------------------------------------------------------
THURSDAY ISLAND    71
tionate and adorable, as well as the most disobedient of dogs. Sometimes he has just to be told what you think of him after some more than usually wicked behaviour, and when that happens it is probably you who will want to cry, not the dog, because of the expression on his face of reproachful wistfulness and doggy remorse.
Well, the eyes of those Guides of Badu Island touched me like that, and I shall never forget their dear, good, smiling black faces, and their wistful, dog-like, trusting eyes.
TOWNSVILLE
You may think Townsville an odd name. I did. It seemed queer somehow to call a place " Towns-town," but it isn't really that, because the town is named after a Captain Robert Towns, a great man and a good man. He was born in Northumberland, and went to sea in a collier, and had a pretty rough time of it as a young deck hand, and later as mate ; but he stuck to his work well, and became Master of that ship, and later bought a ship of his own. In 1827 he sailed off to Australia. He liked the country, so gave up his seagoing, and " took to the land " literally.
In other words he bought it, lots of it, and started growing cotton in Queensland, as well as " growing money " in Sydney, where he became head of a big bank, and a very wealthy and influential man. Starting from nothing as a penniless boy, he made his own living,
made his own career, and he made his own name, entirely through his own energy and pluck. The town that is named after him remembers him with affection, and
prides itself that it too, from small beginnings as a village with one tiny street, has grown into an up-to-date city, " worthy of the courage, tenacity, and vision of the man whose name it bears. . . ."
I have one great regret about Townsville I The Chief Scout and I could not land and see it, and our only

------------------------------------------------------------------------
72    GUIDE LINKS
glimpse of it was from our ship lying two miles out in the roadstead. Time was short, and the reason for calling in was just to drop some passengers and five tons of cargo, so instead of our being able to go ashore and see the Scouts and Guides on land, they had to come out in a launch and let us see them at close quarters on board our good ship Marella.
A little party of nine Guiders and five Guides, six Scouters and thirty Scouts climbed on board to greet us, and though neither time nor space allowed of any very exciting happening it was just a great delight to get even that sight of these keen people who have built up quite a big Guide family in a town of some 3 z,000 inhabitants, hundreds of miles from anywhere.
Sailing all along the coast of Queensland, both coming south to Townsville, and again going on south from Townsville, has been one of the most beautiful voyages I have ever had. I had imagined just plain open sea, with a view possibly in the distance of flat bare brown beach of little interest. Instead of that we have been inside the Great Barrier Reef, fairly close to the shore, and for miles and miles we have steamed through the intricacies of reefs and a series of exquisite little islets, wide bays and straits, with a blazing sun shining upon us.
The hundreds of islands are most attractive. Some are rocky and only have rather meagre grass growing on them ; others are fiat, with a few palm trees waving their branches in the wind ; others are merely coral reefs just sticking up out of the surf and cannot be dignified by the name of islands, and others are just little sloping beaches with rough bushes of scrub sticking up like a fringe upon them. All are lovely to look at, as we glide along through the shining azure sea, passing them on either hand. Here and there we get a sight of the mainland too, a beautiful coast line of purple-blue hills, rising up in some places to rolling mountains some 4,000 feet high,

------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRISBANE    73
a very lovely wavy outline, fading into a hazy distance, soft and alluring.
BRISBANE
Have you ever watched a dog listening with his nose ? You know what I mean—he looks round, smiling the air, and then you can see him saying to himself : " I seem to know that smell. Ah 1 I know—it's master 1 "
I had gone to bed when we were away out in the open sea off the coast of Queensland. I woke to find myself " listening with my nose." What can that funny smell be ? Then I said to myself : " Ah 1 mud 1 Tidal mud banks 1 "—and it was true. There we were, running into the Brisbane River, a lovely wide stretch of water with low, swampy, muddy edges ; and in the distance were lovely lines of blue hills and just an outlined vague mass of low houses, making the wide-spreading town of Brisbane itself.
News came through that Guides and Scouts were awaiting us, and there, sure enough, a splendid crowd of some five hundred were mustered at 9.3o in the morning to greet us.
They collected in the garden-like space called Anzac Square, below their beautiful War Memorial in the centre of the town, just for us to see them and for them to see us, for a brief glimpse before they all had to go off to school or work.
Before now I have talked to you all about the fact that as often as not it is the urrLE things in life that count most—the small but lasting pleasures, the little good turns, the kindly little word of goodwill, the brief fleeting touches of fingers upon the heart-strings.
One of these moments came to me there at Brisbane, when the parade was over and all were dismissing and the important people were leaving the saluting base. His Excellency the Governor and Lady Wilson, the State President ; Lady Macartney, the State Commissioner,

------------------------------------------------------------------------
74    GUIDE LINKS
and all the members of the Committees and official visitors were dispersing in their cars. As I turned to go out of sight of the departing Guides and Brownies, one minute brown-clad person detached itself from its Six.
Alone it climbed panting up the steps of the Anzac Memorial, ran and thrust its hand into mine. Wonderingly I bent down to this elf-like morsel of humanity, all hot and excited as it was, and a voice like the whisper of wind in the heather murmured in my ear " Come again soon "
" Come again soon," indeed I Bless it I
SYDNEY
You will all have discovered by now that I have a tremendous fondness for origins, and I hope you have too I I always like to know where and how a thing or a story, a place or an event had its origin, what led up to it, who thought of it, how the thing really materialised, and who actually did it. Never do I get tired of reading that book, The Story of the Girl Guides, which gives us the origin and history of the growth of our Movement.
And I do like to read Log Books belonging to Companies which have the history of the beginnings of their work. In the old days such Log Books used to give rather meagre records of the Company's origin, because as often as not they would just tell the simple tale of how a few girls got together and talked things over, ending with the phrase, " So we said ' Let's be Guides,' and the Company started." I have seen several like that.
On the other hand, I have seen others on a much grander scale, and I would like to see more ; and especially do I advocate the keeping of any interesting accounts of the actual beginnings of a new Company, because I think that that should be useful and valuable for the recruits who come in later. When they see how the Company they are joining has started and kept going in the past years through the energy and enthusiasm of the

------------------------------------------------------------------------
SYDNEY    75
former members, it is bound to make them think, " Oh well, they did the job well, so I must too ; I can't let the thing down." Knowing the history and the good tradition of her Company will be a moving influence in the mind of each Guide to do her best for the honour of the Company, and spur her on in her work and in her ordinary life.
And after all, when you come to think of it the tradition of a Company of Guides is, on a small scale, much the same thing as the tradition of a firm or a force, a movement or a town, or even a whole country I
It has the same small beginnings of tradition for good work on which industrial businesses are built ; it has the same unconscious influence that prompts people such as firemen and lifeboatmen to rally round one another to effect rescues because the tradition of their service demands it. When you are expected to do a thing the chances are that you will go and do it, whatever effort it may cost you. So tradition is of vital importance to us all, and it can best be fostered by closer study of origins, and it leads us all on to care more deeply about our own Company, or our own home town, and the country in which we live.
One of the many outstanding examples of this liking for tradition or local patriotism, or call it what you will, is to be found in Sydney, Australia, where there is a very strong feeling amongst its inhabitants of admiration and love for their own harbour, their State, and their City itself. They are very proud of it all, its beauty and its size and its strength. And no wonder, for certainly its rise from the smallest of beginnings to one of the largest cities of the world tells a wonderful tale of perseverance and industry on the part of its people. So here is an origin of very real interest to gloat over, and there is romance indeed in the foundation of that town.
I told you about Captain Cook having sailed past the harbour mouth without noticing it. It may sound

------------------------------------------------------------------------
76    GUIDE LINKS
odd that a sailor on the look-out for a landing-place should " not notice " a thing ; but actually the big cliffs at the mouth of the harbour—called " The Heads "overlap in a strange way, when looked at from out at sea. They give the appearance of the whole piece of land being one long line of cliff, and it is only when you get close in, and at a certain angle, that you can see the break in them. Thus it was a year after his landing at Botany Bay that the next move came, and the harbour was found by exploring white people.
At home in old England, Viscount Sydney was then the Secretary of State in the Government in charge of our colonies overseas, and he chose out a certain Captain Arthur Phillip to undertake the almost superhuman task of founding a permanent and self-supporting colony in this hitherto unknown country at the opposite end of the globe. He was born in London, and had many years of honourable service in His Majesty's Navy to his credit. He retired and went to live at Lyndhurst in Hampshire" our " Lyndhurst, where Foxlease is. Then, when asked to come back to serve his country in this new way he gave up his well-earned rest and took command of the proposed expedition.
It took him a year to gather together the whole outfit of ships, of men, of equipment and storm, and to start off, and then going via Rio de Janeiro and the Cape of Good Hope, they took exactly eight months and six days to do the journey 1 Imagine what it must have been like, with 1,48o people crowded into eleven small sailing ships with very inadequate supplies of food and water, no comforts and no convenience for facing the heat of the tropical seas, sailing off through uncharted waters to an unknown, mythical new land, to make homes for themselves and their dependants.
At long last, when they sighted Botany Bay as their objective, Captain Phillip had to face the terrible blow of finding that the place that had been chosen for them was

------------------------------------------------------------------------
SYDNEY    77
an entirely unsuitable one for landing and settling his people. It was this critical situation which showed what pluck and resource was in the make-up of this very exceptional man.
He decided to risk his whole future by leaving his little fleet for the time being at this bad anchorage, whilst he " scouted round " to discover a safe harbour and a more suitable site for the great city that he never doubted he was destined to found.
Setting out with three small boats they sailed along the coast, and being close inshore they naturally came to Sydney Heads, crept through these majestic headlands, and found " the finest harbour in the world." They persevered round its edge, looking in on several different coves to see which would be the very best for settlement. They called in at one on the northern shore, where the aboriginal natives met them in so dignified and fine a manner that they named it " Manly " straight away.
The next day, exploring farther round the curves of this magnificent natural harbour, they came upon a beautifully wooded, sheltered cove, with deep water to its edges, and a stream of water, crystal clear, running out from the shadow of lovely trees stretching away over the slopes of the wooded hills beyond. This then was the place he longed to find. This could indeed be the resting place of the tired voyagers and the starting place for the making of a new Colony for the Old Country.
Phillip returned to his waiting fleet, still at anchor in Botany Bay, and the excitement and relief must have been intense to those hundreds of anxious men and women awaiting his return. Putting equipment and working parties of strong men into a small ship called the Supply, they then sailed along into the wide open, friendly, still waters of the harbour.
He, with his advance party, went on ahead and landed at the chosen spot and, it is said " About five o'clock in the afternoon of January 26th, 1788, set out a picnic

------------------------------------------------------------------------
78    GUIDE LINKS
meal on an improvised table supported by barrels of salt beef and pork. A tall sapling had been trimmed and fitted to make a flagstaff upon which the Union Jack was hoisted. . . . The Marines fired the salute, the King and the Royal Family were honoured, and then His Excellency proposed the toast of ' Success to the First Settlement in Australia.' "
So there we have the story of the origin of something really big and important. It has been said that " to the struggling little settlement on the shores of Sydney Cove, Governor Phillip seems to have bequeathed his splendid pioneering spirit of perseverance and faith, for through many vicissitudes of fortune it has gone ever forward to become the third largest city in the Empire, with a million and a quarter inhabitants. His dream of ' a great city' has come true. . . ."
MELBOURNE
Have you ever noticed that sisters in a family have sometimes peculiar feelings towards one another ?
Each one has her own charm, her own looks (good or otherwise), each has her own intellect and talents, and each has her own personal individuality, and especially each has her own character, which is the thing that counts most above all else. They may be great friends sometimes, they may even keep the best of friends always, and that is a goal to aim for all the time, for it is your attitude towards others that guides their attitude of mind towardsyou
There are moments, however, when one sister may think a trifle ruefully that the other one is getting too much attention 1 Again, other times may come when apparently even too much praise is lavished on the one and not on the other ; this brings a sort of soreness of heart, and even a shadow of jealousy into the mind of one or others of these sisters, which does neither of them any good 1 In fact it only makes things miserable

------------------------------------------------------------------------
MELBOURNE    79
The best hope for ensuring that sisters are true friends is for them not to try to vie with one another, but to see that all feeling of rivalry is ruled out, and that they realise to the full that as both belong to the same family each has her own niche to fill, each is loved for herself and not by comparison with her sister, and that nothing can be gained by striving for your own ends with any bitterness in mind.
Well, and now you can translate that suggestion about " sister people " into " sister cities " instead, and you can name them " Sydney " and " Melbourne." Or you can call them " Edinburgh " and " Glasgow," or
Lisbon " and " Oporto," or " Toronto " and " Montreal "—for any of these big cities situated fairly close to one another, especially those which have grown up with a certain amount of rivalry in commerce, seem to have the same sort of feeling towards each other, and there is a tendency in the one to poke fun at the other, and the " fun poking " sometimes goes rather far and even gets beyond a joke I
If Miss Sydney does something exceptional, then Miss Melbourne must do likewise. Sydney got ahead in her geographical position, and is able to say that she has got the finest harbour in the world " and on the top of that she has built the " biggest single-span bridge in the world."
So now Melbourne has got ahead in another way, and held in 1934 the most marvellous Centenary Celebrations, ending up with the Scout Jamboree, that is, incidentally, the cause of our coming all the way to this end of the world.
Melbourne is a beautiful city. It has big fine houses, Colleges, Government Buildings, Cathedrals, a University, handsome parks, and wide lovely stretches of the River Yarra flowing along by the public gardens and streets. Now as I am writing this, just before the closing of 1934, there is a wonderful invasion of Melbourne

------------------------------------------------------------------------
80    GUIDE LINKS
going on, an invasion by Scouts of many races, coming together as a great band of good pals, to live together in camp, to play, to work, to sing, to rag, to explore, to run, to swim, to cook their grub, and to make friends together and learn more about each other, and to see from this mighty gathering that Scouts the world over are all made of the same stuff, without barrier of distance, or class, or religion, or race.
THE JAMBOREE
Out on the high ground above the small seaside town of Frankston, thirty miles from Melbourne, the wild,
free-growing, open bush had been partially cleared by
Scout working parties during the last few months. Groups of beautiful grey-leafed gum trees and scrubby
undergrowth remained, so that the whole three hundred acres of Camping Ground still looked lovely and unspoilt.
Away in the far distance, looking across the plains, one could discern the city of Melbourne ; beyond that
in one direction, the vague blue outline of the range of the Dandinong Hills loomed up in the haze and on the other lay the wide expanse of shining sea, the water of Melbourne Bay stretching out " into the blue."
It was an exquisite sight and an exquisite site
We were absolutely thrilled on our arrival, and the Chief Scout and I were luckily allowed to settle down, with Heather and Betty, into a jolly little house perched up on a rise right at the corner of the Camp itself.
This wee home became a busy place indeed, for Heather and Betty, as our secretaries, had to get busy with replying to anything up to thirty letters a day, answering telephone calls, sending off telegrams, typing out messages, interviewing the press, receiving parcels, meeting many kind friends, and making plans for every minute of each day.
People may imagine that the Chief Scout and the

------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE JAMBOREE    81
Chief Guide must have a quite wonderful time travelling around seeing Scouts and Guides everywhere. So we do I But there is a great deal of hard work that has to be done behind the scenes, and a Jamboree and a World Tour mean a lot of thought and writing and work of many kinds 1
Whilst this went on inside our little temporary home we could see marvellous things happening out beyond our garden fence, for a huge wide-spreading town of tents was springing up like mushrooms, accommodating in the end some ten thousand Scouts from every part of the vast continent and from far away across the seas as well.
It was an immense affair, and you Guides who go camping with just probably thirty to fifty of you together at a time will be able to guess what a colossal undertaking it is preparing for such huge numbers coming under canvas.
Not only is there the planning beforehand of the financial side of such an undertaking, but there have to be all the preparations such as making roads, arranging transport, registering the names of those expected, allotting sites to different contingents, putting in miles and miles of water pipes, electric light to offices and the Hospital, erecting grandstands to accommodate an audience of about 5,000 people at the Rallies each day, carting of fuel for cooking and camp fires, sanitary arrangements, First-aid Stations and the equipment of the Hospital, and over and above all that the enormous task of supplying the necessary food for this great army of hungry young creatures.
Everything was quite splendidly arranged, the staff work was absolutely magnificent, and, for once, even the weather behaved itself for the beginning of this glorious Jamboree Camp.
The Governor-General, Sir Isaac Isaacs, came from Canberra, the capital of Australia, to perform the Open-6

------------------------------------------------------------------------
82    GUIDE LINKS
ing Ceremony, and brought with him an inspiring message from His Majesty King George.
The whole thing started with a grand March Past of contingents from all the different countries with their colours flying. The groups came down a wide slope into the arena in long columns, ten or twelve abreast, looking absolutely grand.
They came in in alphabetical order—America, Belgium, Ceylon, Fiji, France, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Malaya, and New Zealand were the chief visitors ; and then followed huge contingents in turn from each of the five States of Australia—New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania—followed by Troop after Troop of the fine Victorian Scouts themselves. The whole March Past took well over an hour.
They stood massed and silent for the Broadcast Royal Message, and then one wondered how they were all going to be got out of the arena again. If it had taken an hour to come on, would it also take an hour to go off?
Not a bit of it. The arena had a wide entrance, and when the Opening Ceremony was finished, a voice over the loud speaker quietly told the whole parade to " Left Turn—March," and the whole vast mass of Scouts just turned and, fifty abreast, moved themselves away 1 There was no noise, no shouted orders, no pushing, nobody rushing about to tell anybody else what to do or how to do it, no bustle, no fuss: they just went! It was, I think the most impressive thing I have ever seen.
This happened almost every day for a week. As the news spread amongst the public of this thrilling spectacle taking place each day at Frankston, all the parents and aunts and cousins, and brothers and sisters and wives and sweethearts began to arrive from the city of Melbourne and surrounding districts to witness this unique affair. When these people arrived in their thousands

------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE JAMBOREE    83
they not only sat and watched the arena performances, which were most amusing and spectacular, but they also swarmed like ants over the huge camp itself, calling on the Scouts, watching them cooking, watching them making Camp gadgets, poking into their tents to see how they slept, prying into all the ingenious Camp Craft available for their eyes, and learning, as they never would otherwise, how capable Scouts can be in looking after themselves, and how comfortable one can be (if one only knows how) without civilised home comforts.
You Guides know a good deal about that side of Scouting, and you know too just as well as I do how uncomfortable you can be sometimes in camp, especially if the rain comes down in torrents, and the wind blows a hurricane as well I This did happen, of course, at the Jamboree. You couldn't expect to have a Jamboree without some such excitement, and so the skies opened upon the Camp one day, and after some hours, when the Camp had been practically swamped, the wind began, and blew itself into a gale, and did its best to blow down the tents.
But nothing mattered 1 The Scouts of Australia are not only " fair weather " Scouts. They just put large grins on their faces, waded about repairing the damage to guy ropes and fly sheets, rebuilt swamped fire-places and so on, chaffed one another about their misfortunes and, if anything, seemed to enjoy the adventure.
In a way this adventure was a very good thing, for it just proved the stuff they were made of, and one could not but be lost in admiration for the sporting spirit and capable, plucky way in which those thousands of Scouts stood up to the ordeal of gales and storms.
VICTORIA CENTENARY
Very often parties are held without very much thought as to whether they commemorate anything important or not, but this one, held to remind us of the founding

------------------------------------------------------------------------
84    GUIDE LINKS
of a whole State, is certainly a pretty big thing to rejoice over and think about.
Reading up the history of this country for the past hundred years does indeed make one realise what
splendid British men those were who came sailing away
to this end of the world, exploring and finding new
lands. So far as we know the coast of Victoria was first
seen by a white man as far back as 177o, for Captain Cook sighted it before he actually landed a little way farther along the coast of the neighbouring state of New South Wales.
Then a few years after that, in 1795, H.M.S. Reliance arrived on the scene, carrying on board two other men
whose names became famous—George Bass, after whom Bass Strait was named, and Matthew Flinders, who explored round about the coast, and proved himself a wonderful navigator.
Some French explorers also came sailing along about that time to see whether this country might be suitable
for France to take in charge, but Captain Baudin, who was in charge of this little expedition in 18oz, was politely but firmly told that " England had asserted her sovereignty over Australia," so they retired without further ado.
Of course that phrase sounded very grand and it evidently convinced the gentleman that he was not
wanted, but actually it was just a bit of bluff on the part of those British sailors, because really they had merely a few men on the shore to explore and they had not settled on the land or " asserted any sovereignty " in any definite way at all I
However, having said that Australia belonged to Great Britain it now did, and general attempts were gradually made to settle people on the land.
Many were unsuccessful, but at last in 1834, just One hundred years ago, two brothers arrived called Henty, and these may be counted as the first real settlers of    

------------------------------------------------------------------------
VICTORIA CENTENARY    85
Victoria, for not only did they bring themselves and their belongings but they brought their animals as well
    '    It is quoted that they landed with " thirteen heifers, four working bullocks, five sows in pig, two turkeys, two guinea fowl, six dogs, four men, seeds and plants, and some sheep from a well-bred flock at West Tarring in Sussex."
There is a lesson for us, isn't it ? From that small beginning, with the farming man bringing his live stock from little old England with which to start his homestead and his farm, has grown all this huge, thriving,  cultivated, prosperous State of Victoria with over a million inhabitants to-day.
Whilst the Jamboree was in progress at Frankston, the Guides of Victoria held a big Guide Week in Melbourne, and Guides came from all over the State, and from other States as well, and were housed in schools, halls, clubs, and even in private houses. And one of the big events of Guide Week was the Rally they shared with the Scouts out at the Camp at Frankston, going out there for the day in special trains, buses, . and cars. To some people such journeys may be a bother, but I think to most of us they are part of the fun, even though to the Guiders who manage them they may be little short of a nightmare I I know that all Guiders must suffer on those occasions pangs of anxiety as to whether the Guides will all catch their buses and their trains, whether they will have lost their coats or mislaid their haversacks, whether they will have got with them the necessary appliances for doing any Displays, whether they had food before they left home or will be starving before the outing is really begun, and so on. I wonder if you Guides ever realise what a lot of thought your Guiders give to you—all the time—but more especially at " Rallying time."
Well, all the arrangements for carting some two

------------------------------------------------------------------------
86    GUIDE LINKS
thousand Brownies out to Frankston and back on one day, and some five thousand Guides on the next day, were wonderful, and everything seemed to go like clockwork, thanks to forethought and immense hard work on the part of the Guider " staff " behind the scenes. The Brownie Day was just marvellous, and none of us who were there will ever forget the sight of those thousands of Brownies dancing and prancing past.
I think only three out of the whole two thousand forgot to smile and wave their hands to the Chief Scout.
You Brownies, if any of you see this in print, do let me tell you once again how jolly it is for everybody when you put those happy smiles on your faces, for it makes us feel gay and happy to see you so.
Then the next day was the great Guide Day, also shared with the Scouts. There were about five thousand Guides there, and over ten thousand Scouts, so we were a pretty big family party that day. It was a most impressive sight as row after row of Guides marched past, eight abreast, colours flying, smiling faces, and polished badges shining in the bright sunlight.
But the sun rather over-did its shining for us that day. I could draw a veil over what happened, and not mention it, but I am going to mention it because it is the sort of thing that can and does happen from time to time when Guides come together in large numbers.
Here we had five thousand Guides, having done their March Past, massed in the centre of the arena to watch the Scouts following on after them. The sun was very, very hot, shining on their backs ; many Guides had started from their homes early in the morning ; some had had very little or no lunch ; whilst many were also overexcited with their new and thrilling experience. The ground on which they stood had been watered to make the grass grow, but instead of achieving its purpose it had made it soggy and rather smelly, and not really fit to sit down upon, while on that boiling January day

------------------------------------------------------------------------
VICTORIA CENTENARY    87
there was no refreshing breeze to cool and soothe the packed mass of hot and excited people.
So Mary began suddenly to think that she felt a little queer, and said as much to her friend Jane, standing beside her. Then Jane began to think that she too felt rather faint, and she mentioned this to Lucy also, and thereupon all three of them not only FELT faint, but went the whole hog and DID faint !
There is nothing more upsetting than seeing people panting and fainting all round you, and through
nobody's fault at all but merely from the force of circumstances this " fainting fit " caught on and spread like wildfire, so that quite a large number of Guides just went flopping down like ninepins.
I have given this account of the fainting because I know that this is quite a definite problem at Rallies the world over, as, of course, these big gatherings must always be held in the finest (and therefore, automatically, also the hottest) time of the year.
Long ago when I was Guide age, I used to fame from standing still practising the violin for too long at a time, and I know that when you are growing fast you naturally tire very easily. Standing in rows and in rather a confined space is in itself tiring, and often when big crowds of grown-ups get squeezed together people faint in dozens.
But here and now may I offer this advice, that IF you are a " fainter " and are not up to the mark when a Rally is being planned, just stay away and give the Rally a miss, or go as " audience." You see, if you go to the show and then go flop, you make things difficult not only for yourself, but also for those who are in charge of you, and for those who are managing the First-aid Stations.
I am told that if by chance you do feel a bit dizzy and think you are going to faint, you can prevent yourself doing so by swaying gently from one foot to another, putting the weight first on one and then on the other. Or

------------------------------------------------------------------------
88    GUIDE LINKS
else, if you can, put your head between your knees, and that allows the blood to run to your head. Also another way is to hold the sides of your skirt or overall out a little in each hand, and swing them to and fro. This occupies your attention, and also makes an  airy draught round your legs and body, which cools and refreshes you. This will probably then pull you together, and you will see that you needn't faint, and the fear of it will pass off.
Of course, in little old England, we don't often have it very hot to cause any of that fainting business, but I have seen it happen from time to time, and it is most distressing to watch the people who ought to be enjoying the Rally being unwillingly overcome by the heat and strain.
It is an odd thing to me, and I have often been surprised to find that although there are over three million of us in the world—counting Scouts and Guides of all nations—many grown-up people do not as yet understand this game of ours, and look upon as with vague apathy and complete lack of interest.
This Jamboree " put us on the map " very considerably in Australia, and I met quite a lot of people who said that they had never realised what a very big and going concern this Movement of ours is, and that they had been enormously impressed by all they had seen and now they were going to come in and lend a hand as they saw how worth while it all was.
So you see, Guides, you are doing what you might call your own advertisement I If you are doing good work and being courteous and useful, people will think well of you AND of the Movement you are in, and so that does put a big bit of responsibility on your shoulders, doesn't it ?
The Guiders of Victoria showed up well too in yet another direction during the Jamboree. At the enormous Coming of Age Jamboree at Arrowe Park, Birkenhead, in 1929, the Guiders of Cheshire ran the Hospital

------------------------------------------------------------------------
VICTORIA CENTENARY    89
for the Scouts. There were, as some of you may remember, some 5o,000 Scouts of over forty nations camping at that place at that time.
It was the biggest thing for boys that had ever been held in the world, and none of us will ever forget it.
Specially shall we never forget the mud I The rain poured and poured down for days on end, and the whole Park and all the roadways through it were churned up by people walking about, so that the place was just acres of mud, and the Camp after a time became known as the " Mudboree."
Then in Hungary, the Jamboree there was held in 1934 and the Camp Site was very sandy and dry and I believe they called that the " Dustboree." And now the Australian Jamboree could rather rank higher and be called the " Sunboree," whilst the Jamboree in Denmark in 1924 was certainly a " Rainboree."
Well, as I was saying, the 1929 Jamboree Hospital was staffed by some splendid Guiders, and they made such a grand job of it all that when this Victoria Jamboree was being planned the Chief Commissioner of the Scouts asked the Guiders to run this Hospital.
The Matron was a Guide Commissioner as well as being the Matron of the big Alfred Hospital, and all her Guider Nurses did the work of nursing, cooking, and catering and caring for the patients, and besides these an extra lot of Guiders were on duty looking after the hospital tents, First-aid Marquees, etc.
There were also three extra people attached to the Hospital Staff who had nothing to do with hospital work at all, and who seemed to have perhaps the nicest job imaginable.
These were a Guider and two Patrol Leaders who were " boarded " amongst the Hospital Staff but whose work was really being mounted orderlies. They had their own horses there, and were sent riding about with messages, and they always had to have two or three

------------------------------------------------------------------------
90    GUIDE LINKS
horses saddled and bridled handy and available for use by the Jamboree Organising Staff.
The Camp was over three hundred acres in extent, and so it was most useful for anybody who wanted to rush off from one end of the Camp to another to be able just to hop on to a horse and let him carry him there quickly So these mounted orderlies did a jolly useful bit of work, and by having their horses there they were able to be really most helpful to the hard-worked men who were running that immense and wonderful Camp.
The whole wonderful affair lasted officially for a week, and then gradually the contingents struck camp and one by one they were seen going off in lorries and buses, trains and cars, on foot and on bicycles, till finally there were no tents left at all, and we too moved ourselves off to continue our tour.

SHEEP STATIONS
The Chief Scout had worked very hard during all that wonderful time of the Jamboree, so after it was all over we went off for a few days' holiday out on a " station," which is the Australian name for the big farms, where they have a homestead, stables, cow byres, cart sheds, shearing sheds, and literally miles and miles of grass land for thousands and thousands of sheep.
The first station we went to belongs to some cousins of ours, and is called " Kongbool," near a little village called Balmoral, and here they have three thousand acres of land, and three thousand sheep wandering about all over it 1
I am afraid I am not good at arithmetic, and I cannot translate acres into miles, but I expect some of you can do it 1 Kongbool is considered a small sheep station though, and later on I went to stay with a Guide Commissioner in a part of Victoria called the Western District, and their station W. 24,000 acres—and its owner kept his own little aeroplane handy in a shed outside the

------------------------------------------------------------------------
SHEEP STATIONS            91
garden gate, so that he could literally fly off to call on his neighbours when required I
Aeroplanes will be immensely useful in Australia later when flying is less expensive and becomes a hobby that more people can take up.
There are already quite a fair number of " Flying Doctors," who can be called on to fly off for hundreds of miles to visit any urgent case of accident or illness, and there are also going to be " Flying Nurses " eventually.
The distances are so enormous in Australia, that motors are too slow in cases of emergency, and there are so very many people living on scattered farms absolutely miles and miles from any others. It is quite usual in what is called " the Outback " for a family to have their nearest neighbour some fifty miles away!
Kongbool is not isolated like that, though when I left I had to motor forty miles to catch my train.
The Chief Scout and I were thrilled with the wild bird life.
The magpie is the commonest fellow. He is a bigger bird than the English one, and has the most exquisite soft liquid note and he utters this short cry when he lands on a branch or on the ground. He doesn't sit in the tree and sing like a finch or thrush, but just gives out a few lovely soft notes now and then.
Then here we met that other delicious and unique bird —the Laughing Jackass. His real name is the " Kookaburra " and I like his own local native name much better. He is a priceless creature. He flies on to a branch and then begins a sort of hoarse trill ending up with a loud roar of laughter, which goes on and on like a raucous guffaw.
You just can't help laughing too. He is like a large kingfisher in shape, and he is a good useful bird as well as being delightful, for he kills snakes.
I have never seen one doing it, but we are told that when he sees a snake he pounces down on it, catches it with his strong, spiky, sharp beak and flies up with it

------------------------------------------------------------------------
92    GUIDE LINKS
into the tree. Then he drops the snake violently on to the ground, which breaks its back.
There are, of course, a lot of snakes in Australia, but they are not seen very much. I only met one, and we just clumped him on the head with a stick. The great plague that bothers farmers in Australia is four-footed, and you Guides in Great Britain will probably be surprised about it.
This plague is rabbits ! Poor darlings, there are such millions of them that they have to be caught and killed and slaughtered in any way possible.
Some farmers put out poison for them, but there is danger in that, as sheep or dogs might then get hold of it. In other places they are trapped. In others they hunt them with packs of dogs, which may kill several hundred in a day. At Kongbool they gas them. There is a special machine made which is rather like a spraying machine, and the nozzle of a tube is poked down into a rabbit burrow, the gas-pumping machine is turned on, and then as all the different bolt holes are stopped up the rabbits are quickly suffocated inside their home. It may sound rather cruel, but really it is a humane method, for the rabbits just go to sleep and die quite painlessly and quickly.
This just has to be done, because otherwise they would increase so fearfully and over-run the whole country and eat up all the grass which is required for the all-important sheep whose wool we need.
It is a fine life out on these stations. People call it a hard life because you do have to work really hard, all day and every day, tending the animals, doing your house work, and all your washing and everything to do with the home, and you may be miles and miles from anywhere and not see people or hear much of the doings of the world, but you have other things to make up for this. You are free and out in the wholesome country, far from wearing noise and bustle ; you get up with the

------------------------------------------------------------------------
SHEEP STATIONS             93
sun and go to bed when he does too, and if you are the right sort of woman you can make your life as fine as anybody else's, and many of the sturdy, hard-working women of the " Outback " are of the best stuff imaginable. They are the mainstay of their men folk, and the making of Australia and her future.
I think it is rather a difficult thing to try to describe a country and what it looks like on paper, just as it is practically impossible to describe a person's appearance. You may say that he or she has blue eyes, a round nose, pink cheeks, and a wide mouth—but that does not make you able to see that person's face in your mind's eye.
The same applies to the face of the land to a certain extent. You who live in Great Britain would find it hard to describe any variation in the trees and fields and grass land, the downs and commons and woods or the straggling villages, farms, cottages, and towns that you see from a railway carriage window as you speed across from one county to another.
So in Australia, though the country is so much bigger and so very, very lovely, there is not very much variation in the different parts of the huge States.
You travel through mile upon mile of marvellous forest land with glorious tall grey " gum " trees, and then you will also go through miles of open grass land, where the forest has been cut down, and there are only here and there huge trees still left standing to make shade for the sheep, or gaunt dead tree-stumps like skeletons to show where formerly forest trees stood in their noble hundreds and were cut down to make the land useful to sheep and man.
It is estimated that a sheep requires an acre of grass land to live on. They don't get their little private acre allotted to them exactly, but they live in huge flocks, and move from one paddock to another, as occasion demands, and whereas we in little Great Britain may think of a paddock as being a small square meadow with a hedge all

------------------------------------------------------------------------
94    GUIDE LINKS
round it, a paddock in Australia may stretch twice as far as you can see in all directions, and there is no such thing as a hedge anywhere !
So these sheep have a very wonderful free life in one way, in that they have miles of open space on which to roam and feed undisturbed week in and week out ; but in another way they have a trying time because it is necessary for them to have all their wool cut off every year and that must be a most terrifying business for any sheep. Can't you imagine how alarming it must be to be rounded up by dogs with about 500 of your brothers and sisters, to be driven into small pens and then to be lifted up by a man and have a noisy, buzzing, whirring, electrically-driven shearing machine run over your whole body, taking off your entire outer garment in less than ten minutes
Actually the sheep doesn't look as if he minded this, and the men are very careful and hold them so comfortably that the wretched creatures—though almost upside down—just sit in a huddled heap without struggling.
This isn't all. At another season of the year, and whenever there is any likelihood of flies and ticks becoming prevalent, all the sheep have to be " dipped." This phrase " dipping " sounds a simple enough process, but it isn't so simple for the sheep. They are rounded up in large numbers, and of course they are bound to be rather frightened at being hustled along from their pastures into the pens round the already prepared bath. Then one by one they are driven through a narrow gate and pathway and plunged into a deep bath. In they go —slosh—swoosh—splish--right in and under water and up again like the worst diver imaginable
They practically fall into this narrow deep trough as they are being pushed along from behind by their friends, and they at once start to swim, wanting to climb out of the bath as quickly as they can. As they go swimming along men come with poles and keep ducking them under, so that the whole of their bodies from the

------------------------------------------------------------------------
SHEEP STATIONS         95
tips of their noses to the end of their tails may be well soaked in the strong disinfectant to keep them free from vermin. It isn't actually painful, but it must be very trying to a frightened sheep.
Of course when once it is over they are free to wander again for months undisturbed, unless by chance anything goes wrong with them, or the wool over their eyes grows so quickly that they have to have it clipped away so that they can see better. Although you would think they can take care of themselves there is really plenty for a sheep farmer to do in tending his huge flocks and keeping watch over their welfare and their wool.
Sheep were not the only live stock that I saw on this lovely " station " in Victoria. There were ripping little opossums to be seen if you knew where to look for them, little grey furry beggars with long ropy tails and very round wide-open eyes.
Then, to my intense delight, I found that the rarest of all animals—the platypus—could be seen here in his wild natural state in the creek near the homestead, and that in the evening he would probably emerge from his hiding-place and play round in the water with his wife and family.
We crept down in the dim failing light after sundown, and stood for over half an hour trying to look like tree stumps. We hoped to deceive the platypus and his family,but we did not deceive the mosquitoes! They most certainly knew we weren't tree stumps They devoured our arms, our legs, our faces, our necks ; they hung round as in clouds, they swarmed upon us, uttering that nasty " pinging " noise that all mosquitoes use as their war cry, and it wasn't easy to keep rigidly still and treetrunk-like 1
There were plenty of night noises to be listened to ; small tree birds were busy going to bed and saying good night to each other ; a moorhen slipped across, arriving home late from her supper party with a neighbour, a

------------------------------------------------------------------------
96    GUIDE LINKS
dead branch fell from a willow with a splosh into a dark pool ; a frog woke up from his day siesta and began to croak, probably about the bluebottle he had eaten the day before ; a sheep-dog barked in the distant yard, and the noise echoed round the banks of our stream in the quiet gathering darkness.
Then, as we stood, holding our breath, someone whispered the magic word " look." Out from the bank within a few yards of where I stood moved a tiny little rounded body. It might have been just a flat floating twig, for there was no sign of it being propelled along, no ripple from in front, and no stir of the water behind it as it glided across the inky blackness of the deep pool. Before I could gasp with delight and perhaps in less than twenty seconds, she had vanished behind some rushes—a fleeting, shadowy wild thing, perhaps the queerest and most unique of all living things.
Her mouth is the bill of a duck; her body is furred like a water rat ; her feet are webbed like a duck ; she lays eggs like a crocodile, but she is warm-blooded and suckles her young like a rabbit ; she swims and dives and walks like a beaver ; she sleeps by day and eats and moves about at night like a bat ; and she is shy and delicate, and as a race of animals she is, alas, gradually dying out. I wouldn't for worlds have missed the sight of that little brown thing going off for its night's hunting. As the sun was waking up next morning I woke up too, and slipped quickly down across the dew-covered lawn to wait by the water-side for the coming day, hoping against hope for yet another glimpse in daylight of the weird wee hunter.
As the dawning light flickered through the willow branches a fat mother duck came swimming down the stream, with her brood of fluffy babes. She didn't much like the look of this unaccustomed dressing-gowned tree trunk standing on the bank ! With a low word of warning to her small balls of fluff swimming round and

TOTEM POLE FROM ALASKA AT GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
AUSTRALIA

TYPICAL EXAMPLES OF AUSTRALIAN WILD LIFE.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
SHEEP STATIONS               97
round, she circled out and away across to the other side of the pool to watch with her beady eye for any movement I might make.
A magpie fluttered to the tree over my head, and uttered its sweet bell-like song, to be answered by its mate, standing on a hollow tree on the opposite bank. A small flock of vivid green parrakeets fluttered suddenly from the thicket nearby, giving out hoarse twitterings of annoyance at being disturbed by a passing crow.
As I waited for the little brown platypus who never came, the sun suddenly blazed out in all its glory, throwing long shadows from the stately, graceful gum trees across the flower beds and the rippling water of the higher reaches of the creek. It was very lovely.
My watching time was over.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
I Do like politeness, don't you ? There is a French saying : " Toryours la politesse," and I think nice manners count in life just as much as all the other essential good things. If one is treated politely and kindly one is much more apt to be kind in return, whereas if you are treated brusquely, and even rudely, you cannot help getting your hackles up and resenting it. For instance, I always think it is unpleasant when you see a notice saying " PENALTY £5," or " DAMAGE—anyone damaging this property will be prosecuted," which sounds threatening. Now in the train on my journey from Horsham, in Victoria, to Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, I saw a notice which at once arrested my attention, as it was so nice and sensibly put. Here it is :
" PLEASE
" For your comfort this car has been designed to conform with the best in the world railroad practice, and expert Australian craftsmen have fashioned its fittings from selected Australian timbers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
98    GUIDE LINKS
" We ask you, in token of appreciation, to protect the car—your car—from the unsightly damage of boot-scratches and cigarette burns.
" For the time being it is your home ; to-morrow it will be that of a fellow citizen."
Doesn't that appeal in the right way to one's senses ? and surely nobody could want to carve their name on the wood or wipe their shoes on the seat after that.
It is just the wording of a phrase like that which makes all the difference, and in the same way when people talk and answer a question it is the wording and the manner of the reply that count.
So, feeling soothed by this kindly advice in my railway carriage, I arrived once more in dear South Australia. The Guides of South Australia never do things by halves, and on visiting the State again I was vividly reminded of the quite splendid Handcraft Exhibition that had been held by them in Adelaide when the Chief Scout and I were there in 1931.
That, at the time, had struck me as being the best thing of its kind that I had ever seen, and especially in its main feature, which was the " Home-making " Competition. All round the edge of the Exhibition building, spaces about ten feet square had been allotted to the different Companies, and they were each expected to decorate and furnish this space as a comfortable room in the nicest way possible at the smallest cost.
Accurate record of expense was to be kept in order to show that with care, ingenuity, and talent the smallest sum can probably achieve just as charming a result as greater expenditure of money.
This is an awfully good sort of competition and it was absolutely amazing what attractive results were shown by some Companies, with the help just of a few small pots of paint, some scraps of cast-off wall-paper, two-pennyworth of glue, bits of stuff, and a packing case or two

------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOUTH AUSTRALIA    99
Of course it takes time and trouble and talent to tackle a job like that, but are we Guides or are we not ? Surely you people are not lacking in either of those three things beginning with " T " I
Some time ago somebody said to the Chief Scout, " Oh, I haven't time," and his reply to that remark was simply, " You've got all the time there is 1 "
Yes. That's just it I The time is there right enough, but it is the way we use it up and partition it out that counts. With a bit of extra quickness and care in saving time here and there, and by a little extra forethought one can, as often as not, just catch up those extra spare moments which can be used for doing special little jobs that are useful and such fun.
The taking of trouble costs nothing. It is just as easy to do a thing thoroughly as it is to do it in a slipshod way, and when you see the result of handiwork that you have taken pains with, you get your reward twenty times over.
You Guides who go into Camp each summer know this only too well, because you know how to make camp gadgets that will do their work well for you and you know that it doesn't do to skimp your work. If you do, as sure as fate the weather will find you out, and out will go your fire if you haven't taken the trouble to gather in your fuel and keep it dry, or your fly sheet will sag and make your tent wet if your guys are not set right
The taking of trouble costs nothing except the good use of your own brain and your own energy.
As for the third "T" of talent, I agree that we haven't all got that given to us unasked. Some have and some haven't 1 Those who have gifts can use them without effort, lucky people ; and those of us who are perhaps a bit backward and not so brilliant can probably cultivate what talents we have and in the end get quite clever at arts and crafts if we plod along and have a good try.
I can assure you that the Guides of South Australia

------------------------------------------------------------------------
100         GUIDE LINKS
and their leaders not only try but they succeed in many things too, and they have now succeeded in obtaining from their Government the use of a very nice School House as a Training Centre for their Guiders and a Camping Centre for Patrol Leaders.
The place had been out of use for some time, as a new school had been built near at hand, and you know how quickly a house begins to look tired and grubby and unattractive. Well, the moment the Government said the Guides might have it the magic wand was wielded by the local Guiders and transformed it all into a delightful Guide Home, furnished, equipped, and redecorated by willing hands. I had been invited to open it for use officially, and also to name it. It was suggested that it might be called " Pax Hill " as a namesake of my own home in Hampshire, but considering it is to be used as a Training School for Guiders I felt it should somehow be linked up with the name of our own English Training School, " Foxlease," and so I made a portmanteau word for the occasion and it is now called " Paxlease."
Such a jolly place it is too, and the Guides of South Australia certainly deserve it and will value it immensely. We are living in a very civilised age, and most of our primitive instincts are dying out and leaving us. Now that we do not have to bite rough, tough food our teeth are no longer so strong as those of our ancestors ; now that we do not have to use our eyes for finding our way about unmapped territory our eyesight is not nearly so good ; now that we no longer have to run and chase our quarry, or flee from our enemies, we cannot jump and run with the same speed and agility.
But some of these instincts of our forbears remain in an unusual way. I have two such instincts—at least I LIKE to think they are instincts and not mere whims 1 One is that when I go into a house that I do not know I at once go to the window to look out and see what view

------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOUTH AUSTRALIA    I01
there is. It may be just habit ; but I think that all unconsciously I am probably reverting to the primitive desire to know how to escape if the need arises I
My second instinct is of course my love of origins that I have already mentioned.
I cannot account for this, excepting that of course monkeys are always supposed to be very inquisitive and some people think that some millions of years ago we humans belonged to a prehistoric race of apes.
cSo perhaps this love of finding out and telling you of some of these bits of history of the places I am visiting may be traced back to my very-far-away, long-forgotten, dim-distinct, ape-like ancestry I
Anyhow, the moment I got to South Australia I began my usual hunt for its origin, and this State, like the rest of Australia, has its interesting history, its tales of adventure and of untold pluck and courage on the part of the first pioneers. The first explorers had all had their hopes dashed by disasters by land and sea.
A great Spanish explorer, Mendana, attempted to find the Great Unknown South Land in the sixteenth century. Later his second-in-command, de Quiros, sailed across the Pacific Ocean from Peru and thought he had found it. Actually the land he found was only one of the New Hebrides islands, but de Quiros called all the land he saw "Australia del Esperita Santo," which means " Southern Land of the Holy Spirit."
Francis Pelsart, a Dutchman, landed on the coast of Western Australia, but the sailors with him mutinied and they had fearful battles, and eventually, with the few that were left, he retired back to Java.
Abel Tasman also came round Australia from Java, and landed on an island which he then named " Maria Island," after the wife of Antony Van Diemen, who was then his Governor in Java.
His expedition also had trouble, and did some fighting with the natives and amongst themselves. So he too

------------------------------------------------------------------------
102    GUIDE LINKS
had to decamp and for a time this piece of land was called " Van Diemen's Land " and later changed its name to " Tasmania" after its first discoverer.
William Dampier was the first Englishman to set foot on Australian soil, and then our famous Captain Cook came along and, as his Journal says : " hoisted English colours, and in the name of His Majesty King George the Third took possession of the whole of the Eastern coast of the continent."
He in his turn was followed by other marvellous men, who came adventuring across these thousands and thousands of miles of sea to find the new continent. Bass and Flinders did a lot ; Captain Charles Sturt was yet another of those brave seafaring people, and all the tales of their real adventures are more thrilling than any invented yarns of bravery and excitement.
South Australia itself was founded in 1836, Captain John Hindmarsh arriving in the ship Buffalo, and Colonel William Light being the first Governor. The tale of their settling the country is all most thrilling and interesting, and I was glad to find that the Guides of South Australia are really interested in it all, for they did a delightful pageant of the landing of the crew of the Buffalo as a display for me at a lovely picnic party we all had together near Adelaide.
They had read up their subject, and were all so cleverly dressed up as the sailors of those old days. Some of them had even borrowed old, old dresses that had belonged to their ancestors who had actually landed there at that time.
NEW SOUTH WALES
I do like contrasts, which, in their own way, show up the values of individual things and people.
A lovely sunny day sandwiched in between two wet ones shows up as doubly beautiful and precious. At a concert the beauty of a beautiful song is enhanced by

------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW SOUTII WALES    103
the items surrounding it being of a different sort and having their own type of charm or wit.
The biggest happinesses that come to one are made the bigger by the contrast of possibly some worry or anxiety beforehand, and personally I delight in the contrasts that have a twist of humour about them. In these I am perhaps luckier than most people.
I so well remember, for instance, that at the time of the first big International Scout Jamboree in 1920 my mother was moving house and all one morning I was busy tin-tacking the linoleum down in her bathroom, and in the afternoon I saw the Chief Scout acclaimed as Chief Scout of the World 1
Yet another important day in my life was when I went to receive my G.B.E. from His Majesty King George, because of what YOU—yes, YOU Guides and Brownies—are doing in making our Movement so worth while. My other engagement that day on my return home was to give our Welsh Terrier a bath 1
It is those sort of ordinary everyday things that make the greater things stand out more vividly, and, as I have told you before, it is the little things that count just as much as the big ones, the little drop of oil that helps the wheels of daily life to go round more smoothly.
A very long journey took us from Adelaide to Sydney, passing through most beautiful scenery, wide-open, spacy country, with but few people to be seen, and the entrancing loveliness of Nature all around. And then we come to the greatest possible contrast to it all on arriving again in a world of people, for Sydney has a million inhabitants, and the biggest, strongest, noblest, and finest of machine-made things in the world of Man—Sydney Bridge.
The bridge is a truly magnificent thing, and most impressive in its immense size and handsome proportions. You see it from miles away up country, and you see it from miles away at sea. There stands this vast erection

------------------------------------------------------------------------
104    GUIDE LINKS
spreading its length from shore to shore of the Harbour, and here are some facts and figures about it which speak for themselves.
The length of the Bridge itself and the approaching roads leading on to it is over two miles.
This took seven years to build and was opened in March 1932, for carrying all the immense amount of traffic from one side of Sydney Harbour to the other. Before then everything had had either to go across by small ferry boats, or go right round many miles by road ; and so plans for the building of a bridge had been discussed for years as the city grew and grew and went on growing into so vast a size.
The length of the steelwork itself is 3,77o feet, and the height from the top joint of the crown is 44o feet above sea-level. When you sail under it in the big liners, there are yards of space between the top of the ship's highest mast and the bridge itself.
It is so wide that it has, running abreast across it, two electric train tracks, two railway tracks, two wide pedestrians' pathways, and a central roadway where six cars can drive along " hand in hand " so to speak. It cost ten million pounds to build.
At a busy time of day, in the short space of one hour, it is crossed by as many as 128 trains, 6,0oo vehicles, and 40,000 people. So you see, although it seemed an enormous undertaking to erect this biggest bridge in the world, it has a very important part to play in the life of the busy city.
Everybody in New South Wales is proud of Sydney, as the Capital City of their State ; everybody is proud of the beauty of their Harbour, and everybody is proud of the grandeur and size of their Bridge.
Here I was able to get a glimpse of the charming New South Wales " Foxlease," which is called " Glengarry," and consists of a cluster of two small cottages, an open-air kitchen, and a nice hut, with a bit of garden round about

------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW SOUTH WALES    I05
them. It is just the sweetest little property, right out in the country on the crest of a wooded hill overlooking a deep ravine, and though it lies within easy reach of the city so that it is quite accessible for Guides coming to camp, it seems to be miles away from anywhere. From the doorway you just see miles of untouched bush .tending far away on to the horizon, and you are surrounded by beauty and the quiet stillness of the forest.
The ground slopes steeply away into a gully filled with lovely trees and flowering shrubs, and down at the bottom lies a bewitching fairy-like dell of mossy rocks and ferns. From high up on the hillside a sparkling mountain stream comes rippling crystal clear into the deep pool below.
Deep under the big shadowing trees and away from all sound or sight of the outer world you feel as if the forest quiet was holding you in its arms, and the beauty and the silence, broken only by the splashing stream, makes this indeed a dream haven for those lucky Guides who have the use of " Glengarry " and the dell.
I met some of these self-same lucky Guides at a Camp Fire in Sydney Park on the night before we reluctantly sailed away from Australia. I don't know how many were there, for it was dark and all were packed into a congealed mass round the Camp Fire, so that you just could not gauge if there were hundreds or thousands of Guides present. It certainly was ripping to see that sea of bright smiling faces shining in the dancing flames and to hear their cheers and to feel their keen enthusiasm all aglow. We had a very cheery time singing, and all went well until the amplifier broke down, and nobody could see or hear the Guider conductor of the proceedings 1 So everybody just sang what they liked, how they liked, and when they liked, and there was some time of amusing confused noise as one lot of Guides sang " Camp Fire's Burning " and another lot performed " Waltzing Matilda " with equal gusto at the other side of the fire I

------------------------------------------------------------------------
I06    GUIDE LINKS
Talking about Camp Fires and crowds of Guides gathered together round them, I want to give some suggestions about these for the occasions when there are more than a hundred Guides present. I have been to a large number of Camp Fires where Guides have, of their own accord, got themselves so tightly packed together that they just could not be comfortable or enjoy themselves or sing properly.
When several hundred Guides get together they take up quite a lot of floor space sitting down, and I have often seen them developing what one might call the " sheep complex."
They absolutely will push in and go where the other fellow goes, with the result that they get all herded together in a squeezed bunch so tightly that :
I. Nobody can sit down comfortably, with arms and legs stretched out at ease, so that they cannot really enjoy the performance.
z. Only half the number can see properly, because their heads are blocking the view of the other half.
3. They cannot sing well because they are too cramped.
So next time you are having a big Camp Fire I do advise you to bear this in mind, and with your friends spread yourselves out in a good wide horseshoe, so that everybody can be comfortably seated to enjoy the fun.
There are some very good keen Lone Guides in New South Wales—just as there are in other places too—and they very kindly gave me a charming Log Book of their own making.
This book contained some of the usual Company letters and contributions, so that I feel I am sharing with them in their ordinary Guide correspondence.
And I was immensely impressed by the Goon WRITINGS SENT IN BY MANY OF THE MEMBERS which held great depth of feeling, and showed what a big interest each writer is taking in the beauties, the history, and the affairs of her

------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW SOUTH WALES    107
own neighbourhood, and also a real love of her home surroundings. I feel here that I must quote one or two special bits which all of you will enjoy almost as much as I have
One that I like immensely, written by Lily Ryder, runs as follows :
" Two LoNEs ON A DAIRY FARM
" Owing to loss of work Dad was forced to sell our home and buy a dairy farm. Having lived all our life in a town we two were faced with the unknown. We are up by dawn, learning to milk. There are many things to be done, and there seems no time to do a half of them —the washing up, the work in the dairy, the feeding of the animals and hens, the cleaning of the yards, taking the cows out to pasture, and then home to help with the housework and get the dinner, and no sooner is dinner over than we start all over again.
" But there are compensations for all our work. We can see the mountains far to the west, with the twinkling lights of a far-away town. The sunsets are wonderful, for we are high up and there is nothing to spoil the view. Down in the creek the water trickles between the rocks, and ferns grow in masses, and the wild raspberry vines creep over the trees covered with ripe red berries. " Yes, there are compensations. . . . Everything looks to us to be fed, and goes away contented, the cows with their gentle ways, the fowls with their noisy cackling, and the strutting turkey with widespread tail and lordly gait. All are ours to care for, and when night comes and we think things over, even if we miss the society of our friends and the cheery Guide meetings we used to have, we have the satisfaction of knowing that we are doing our best to help those we love. . . ."
Well, that's good, and I'd like to meet that Guide who is thus making the best of things, doing her bit to

------------------------------------------------------------------------
I08    GUIDE LINKS
help her parents and enjoying the hard work and the beauties of her wholesome country life.
And here is yet another Guide who has eyes well open to beauty, and who knows how to express it too. Her name is Mavis Martin, and I have never met her, but I trust that she will not mind my quoting the charming thing she wrote in my gift book.
" EVENING
" What magic is woven in the evening, that mystic time when day and night are blended together in perfect harmony. The western sky blushes crimson as the sun bestows one last ruddy kiss upon the world. In the shaded valley purple shadows are already gathering, and as the gaudy colours of sunset fade softly away the shadows deepen until at length the world is bathed in the tranquil beauty of twilight.
" The birds cease their tuneful chattering and seek shelter among the leafy trees. The silver moon sails majestically into the sky, lighting the earth with her soft radiance. The last colours of the sunset fade away, and with their departure, night arrives, throwing her velvet cloak of darkness over the world."
And we have a talented Guide poetess in Maud Rien, as you will see by this enchanting verse :
"RED AND GOLD
" Slowly, silently, through the night
In her red and golden gown,
Autumn has come with footsteps light,
Tripping through meadow and town. Merry and laughing and debonair,
Winsome and wayward and fleet,
with rowan herein mined in her hair
And a carpet of gold at her feet."
Looking back on our tour in Australia and mixed in with the happy memories of the wonderful Jamboree and Guide Rallies, I have many lesser lights of delicious

------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW SOUTH WALES    109
experiences to gloat over. These too will remain with me always, and, oddly enough, several of them have to do with animals.
One of these precious mental pictures is that of coming face to face at close quarters with an opossum, free and uncaged.
This nice furry thing had lived in the copse near to our host's house, and one day when the latter was busy in his workshop he saw her come right in over the doorstep and look about as if she liked the place. He threw her some food gently, and she seemed to understand that he meant her no harm. She accepted the food and next day she came again for another meal and eventually she adopted as her own a box placed high on some rafters overhead, and it was there that I met her, awaking from her day's sleep.
'Possums are nocturnal animals, and sleep through the day. When I climbed up a ladder and looked in there she was just curled up so snugly, her long tail neatly folded round, and her alert wee foxy face watching nervously to see who and what was coming to disturb her sanctuary. She deigned to take a piece of chocolate from me, and nibbled the corner of it daintily, holding it in her " hand " the while, a fascinating little creature.
But in the whole animal world I am sure there is nothing to touch the Koala for absolute perfection. He is irresistible. He is sweet. He is adorable. He is everything that is delicious.
He is the little Australian native bear, exactly like the Teddy Bear you buy in a toy shop. He is the Most delightful thing to look at and to hold. When he stands up on his hind legs like a person, he reaches up to about your knee. His front legs and feet are much more like arms and hands than anything else, for his hands hold on to the branches of trees when he walks up the trunk and sits on the boughs, and he uses them to collect his food and to scratch himself. He is absolutely clean and never

------------------------------------------------------------------------
IIO    GUIDE LINKS
has any vermin on him, so he is a perfect pet and most huggable.
He lives in gum trees and feeds exclusively on these leaves, being most particular about his diet. In fact a grave difficulty has now arisen, for he needs constant variation of food, and if he cannot get this change and the different species of gum leaf necessary for his delicate little inside machinery, he falls sick and dies.
Sad to relate, he has died out in many parts of Australia and there are now only comparatively few left. Near to Pennant Hills, the Scouts' " Gilwell Park " of New South Wales, about twenty miles away from Sydney, is a charming park which has been fenced in by a kind, far-seeing lover of Koalas, and he there has over ninety of these darling things safely living their quite immobile lives in the tops of trees that he is planting for their benefit. He has a hospital for them if they are ill, and if one of his precious treasures needs special care or treatment he gets it, for Mr. Noel Burnett is making the study of them and the care of them his life's work.
People come in hundreds to his Koala Park, and there you see these furry lumps up in their trees, all fast asleep until the tree is shaken, and then they will sleepily look down to see what the fuss is about.
The Koala seems to be able to make his face more expressionful than any other animal I know, and his look of surprise, then disdain mixed with slight anxiety, is absolutely inimitable.
The precious fluffy bundle that was put into my arms to hold just clutched his arms round me and snuggled his face into my neck exactly as a baby would. As the dear things sleep by day and move about at night he was so sleepy that he would have gone dozing off in my arms if he had been allowed to.
The name " Koala " comes from an old aboriginal word meaning " I do not drink," which is true in the case of this quaint creature.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW SOUTH WALES    111
His pet attitude is sitting astride a branch, resting his weight against the tree and just holding on with his arms clutching round the tree trunk, like a baby holding its arms round its mother's neck.
In fact you think of babies quite a lot when you are with these sweet things, for they are apparently so helpless, they are so cuddle-able, and they just want to be loved.
Oh, by the way, I ought to explain that the gum trees of Australia are what we would call Eucalyptus in Europe, but they grow a good deal larger. They are just wonderfully beautiful both in shape and size, growing up to an immense height, with widespread branches and with exquisite soft colouring on their bark, which peels off in great ragged strips at certain times of the year. That is my last " snapshot " of that vast and lovely continent of Australia. First I see the members of our Guide family, and the big well-found cities in which they live, the scattered townships and the lonely homestead of the " out-back."
Then as I shut my eyes I see the further picture of the wide empty desert spaces of the inland, and the thousands of acres of grass lands where sheep and cattle roam, the miles and miles of bush, filled with wild furred and feathered things, and the stately gum trees, standing like opalescent living columns of strength and beauty, tall sentinels standing as emblems of the power of the nation growing up around them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------