Kaleidoscope. By E. Katharine Bates. (Ward and Downey.)— If Mr.
Froude's name is in Australia " as the red rag to the
Colonial bull," what will Miss Bates's be, always supposing that the said bull sees it? Australia is "a second or third-rate England,"—not such a bad compliment for a country not a century old; "it has all the bumptiousness and self-assertion of. America, without her originality." Miss Bates went to Tasmania, and found it depressing. She visited Australia; her opinion of that country has been given. She went to the Parliament at Sydney, and was not pleased; the Parliament at Melbourne was—at least, on that occasion—" respectable, if somewhat dull." Generally, she found little to admire in Australia, except some of the scenery.
In New Zealand she felt more at home ; but she speaks afterwards of the "political corruption, and consequent bankrupt condition,
of the country." She pays, however, this compliment to the Australian Colonies,—that she found more happy married couples in them than England is able to produce. Miss Bates travelled to Japan, rid China, and has much to say about the former country. A trip to Alaska followed, and she came home by the Canadian Pacific Railway,—a route which seems to have dis- appointed her, as she found it, from Banff onwards, to be "nothing but the most depressing and monotonous prairie." This is a-lively book of travel, by an observer who thinks for herself and says what she thinks.
Previous page
