Chapter I: Front Matter

CARPENTER’S
WORLD TRAVELS

_Familiar Talks About Countries
and Peoples_

WITH THE AUTHOR ON THE SPOT AND
THE READER IN HIS HOME, BASED
ON THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND
MILES OF TRAVEL
OVER THE GLOBE

“READING CARPENTER IS SEEING THE WORLD”

_CARPENTER’S WORLD TRAVELS_

Australia, New Zealand
and
Some Islands of the South Seas

_Australia, New Zealand, Thursday Island,
The Samoas, New Guinea, The Fijis,
and the Tongas_

BY
FRANK G. CARPENTER
LITT.D., F.R.G.S.

WITH 126 ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1924

COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY
FRANK G. CARPENTER

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

_First Edition_

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the publication of this volume on my travels in Australia, New Zealand, and the South Seas, I wish to thank the Secretary of State for letters which have given me the assistance of our official representative in the countries visited. I thank also the Secretary of Agriculture and our Secretary of Labour for appointing me an Honorary Commissioner of their Departments in foreign lands. Their credentials have been of great value, making accessible sources of information seldom opened to the ordinary traveller.

To the officials of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Dominion of New Zealand I desire to express my thanks for exceptional courtesies which greatly aided me in my investigations.

I would also thank Mr. Dudley Harmon, my editor, and Miss Ellen McBryde Brown and Miss Josephine Lehmann, my associate editors, for their assistance and coöperation in the revision of notes dictated or penned by me on the ground.

While nearly all of the illustrations in CARPENTER’S WORLD TRAVELS are from my own negatives, those in this book have been supplemented by photographs from the official collections of the State and Commonwealth governments of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the United States Department of Commerce.

F. G. C.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. JUST A WORD BEFORE WE START 1

II. THE GIANT OF THE SOUTH SEAS 3

III. QUEENSLAND 10

IV. A CROWN OF GOLD AND A CROSS OF CACTUS 19

V. THE METROPOLIS OF THE ANTIPODES 24

VI. WALKS ABOUT SYDNEY 31

VII. THE LAND OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 37

VIII. IN THE GREAT WOOL MARKET 42

IX. LIFE ON THE SHEEP STATIONS 47

X. RABBITS AND DINGOES 56

XI. WATER FOR THIRSTY LANDS 62

XII. MELBOURNE 72

XIII. IN THE MARTS OF THE CITY 80

XIV. THE STATE-OWNED RAILWAYS 85

XV. GOLD DIGGINGS IN CREEK AND DESERT 95

XVI. A WHITE WORKERS’ CONTINENT 104

XVII. THE THREE “R’S” IN AUSTRALIA 113

XVIII. THE ABORIGINES 120

XIX. KANGAROOS AND DANCING BIRDS 129

XX. AUSTRALIA AS OUR CUSTOMER 137

XXI. TASMANIA 144

XXII. THE PEARL FISHERIES OF THURSDAY
ISLAND 152

XXIII. AUSTRALIA’S ISLAND WARDS 159

XXIV. ACROSS THE TASMAN SEA TO WELLINGTON 165

XXV. THE DOMINION OF NEW ZEALAND 170

XXVI. “SOCIAL PESTS” 178

XXVII. THE WOMEN OF THE DOMINION 186

XXVIII. A COUNTRY WITHOUT A POORHOUSE 194

XXIX. WHERE THE WORKING MAN RULES 202

XXX. ON THE GOVERNMENT RAILWAYS 213

XXXI. THE YELLOWSTONE OF NEW ZEALAND 220

XXXII. THE MAORIS 227

XXXIII. MUTTON AND BUTTER FOR LONDON
TABLES 236

XXXIV. SOME FREAKS OF NATURE 246

XXXV. AMERICAN GOODS IN NEW ZEALAND 255

XXXVI. THE FIJIS AND THE TONGAS 263

XXXVII. THE SAMOAS 273

SEE THE WORLD WITH FRANK G. CARPENTER 282

INDEX 287

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

In the “Great White Continent” _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

Crossing the Murray River 2

The giant tree ferns 3

Wheat going to market 6

Wool for half the world 6

On the Brisbane water front 7

The Brisbane River 7

Queensland sugar 14

Pineapples 14

Bottle trees 15

A settler’s home 18

The hill of gold and copper 19

The sapphire mines 19

Clearing off the scrub 22

How the farmers live 22

Down town in Sydney 23

At Bondi Beach 30

Airplane view of Sydney harbour 31

Manly Beach 31

Hauling the wool clip to market 38

Some champion Merinos 38

Winter sports on Mount Kosciusko 39

Skating amid the green 39

In the sheepfold 46

To a tea party on horseback 47

Home life on a sheep station 50

The sheep shearers 51

Sheep about to lose their wool 51

Home of a station manager 54

Boys who grow up on horseback 54

The boundary rider 55

Irrigating orchard 62

Rabbit fences 63

Packing rabbit skins for export 63

A city on the reclaimed lands 66

Breaking down the scrub 66

Rescuing cattle from the drought 67

How water is saved 67

“Boiling the billy” 70

Collins Street, Melbourne 71

At the race track 78

Melbourne city hall 78

The Parliament House 79

Alexandra Gardens 79

Logging in the eucalyptus forest 86

The Governor’s house at Perth 87

Moving the wheat crop 87

An artesian bore 94

Panning gold 95

The dry-blow process 98

A camel train 99

The sheep-shearers’ “smoker” 102

The leather workers 102

The drive across country 103

Immigrants landing 110

Girls learning to keep house 111

The grammar school at Melbourne 114

How some children get to school 115

Where farm wives go to school 115

Half-civilized aborigines 118

The aborigines of the wilds 119

Turkey shooting by airplane 126

Kangaroo 127

The Australian opossum 130

Mother bear and her baby 131

In Sydney’s business district 134

Loading wheat for export 134

American machinery in Australian mines 135

Motor picnics in American cars 135

The stripper harvester 142

An Illinois harvester in Australia 142

In Hobart, Tasmania 143

Logging on a Tasmanian river 146

Hobart and Derwent River 147

Orchards of the “Apple Isle” 147

Thursday Island 150

Tattooed South Sea Island belles 150

Opening the pearl oyster 151

South Sea Islander 158

A village house 159

A South Sea warrior 162

On the shores of the Tasman Sea 163

Wellington harbour 163

A New Zealand forest 170

The beautiful coast of South Island 171

Potential water power 178

A New Zealand farm 179

The crater of Mount Tarawera 179

Developing new crops 182

A settler’s home site 183

A Maori belle 190

Women hop pickers 191

Beach at Napier 198

The great Tasman glacier 199

Christmas roses 206

The wheat harvest 206

The New Zealander’s favourite sport 207

Sheep in a turnip field 214

A private railroad 215

At the Yellowstone of New Zealand 222

Wairoa geyser 223

The hot sulphur pit of White Island 226

Maori house at Lake Taupo 226

_Poi_ dance 227

Natural fireless cookers 227

Bathers in the hot pools 230

The Maori _haka_ 231

Grading butter for export 238

The dying art of tattooing 239

A New Zealand harbour 242

The rabbit trappers’ catch 242

Mount Egmont 243

The totara tree 246

On Mount Cook 247

Kauri gum mines 254

New Zealand flax 255

Farming with tractor and gang ploughs 258

A dairy herd 259

London’s mutton chops 259

Gathering coconuts 262

Tree nursery on a rubber plantation 263

Savaii in eruption 270

Native church at Apia 271

Native mission school 271

A Samoan beauty 274

Copra ready for shipment 275

AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND
AND
SOME ISLANDS OF THE SOUTH SEAS