right, and which every rural householder concedes as of course, throughout the whole scantily peopled, wide-stretching realm of Western Australia. The custom is not often subjected to abuse, but it is open to it. On the other hand, in these out-of-the-way locations, a visitor from the outside world is a godsend to the pastoral exile, and if five out of every ten prove bores they are endurable for the sake of the other five who make themselves entertaining by their intelligence or their idiosyncrasies. It was indeed a joy to sit once more at a brightly set flower adorned table, and to luxuriate in the comforts of a downy bed and well-furnished English-like bedchamber. Our host, whom we met further along the road on his return home, is a grand nephew of that doughty old Lord Chief Justice of Ireland who, long after he was an octogenarian, held on to his office, in order that the privilege of appointing his successor might not fall to the lot of the Liberals whom his soul loathed. An inscribed cup in the dining- room showed that he had been "first in the mile" at Rugby as far back as 1870. We were thus in the midst of bush surroundings tempered by a pleasant admixture of English traditions.
The next morning we tore ourselves away from pleasant Welbing, and a little after midday found ourselves at the gates of the far-famed monastery of New Norcia, where Bishop Salvado for more than forty years past has conducted the most successful mission to the aborigines which exists in any part of Australia. The cruciform church and the brick monastery, with its wooden wings, its swarthy brethren, and its groves of oranges and almonds, loomed up before us like a piece of old Spain in this shrineless land. The abbot himself—a veritable "gentleman of Spain"—walked slowly across the courtyard to welcome us to his domain. With his whiskers and moustache and everyday style of dress he looked very little of the ecclesiastic, and still less of the mitred abbot of the Protestant imagination. Courteously entreating us, we were very shortly seated in his modest sanctum drinking of the home-made wine and eating of the home-dried almonds which are the speciality of the establishment. Guest-chambers having been assigned to us, the good bishop, who bears his eighty years better than
