BECOME A MAJOR-GENERAL.

351

almost painful to me one day-France being our old ally-to see a company, which was supposed to be receiving instructions out in the country in outpost work the two officers were walking about on the road, well away from their men, who were skylarking!

My only chance of forming an opinion on the Italian army was from those perfect soldiers-the Sardinians in the Crimea ; but by permission from Rome, I went over the dockyard at Spezzia. From what I saw and heard there, I gathered that the Northern Italian makes a good sailor, which is not the case with the Southern Italian: they are evidently two distinct and different races.

The system I had tried for the battle-training of regimental officers having been approved of, I thought it my duty, on returning to London, to deliver a lecture at the United Service Institution, giving full details of the work: the majority of the headquarter staff did me the honour of attending. The next day I got a note from the military secretary saying he wished to see me. I thought it might be to point out that I was rather too advanced in my ideas, but that was not the case. It was to inform me that, owing to the Indian regulations, I could not hold the appointment which he wished me to have in that country, but he could offer me the post of commandant of the Australian forces in Victoria, with the local rank of major-general. I was under the impression that in such a position I should be expected to do a good deal of entertaining in a very expensive part of the world, and therefore was afraid I could not accept his very kind offer; but on the military secretary informing me that if an Australian Contingent

were sent on active service to the north-west frontier of India, I should have the command of it, I replied, "On these terms I shall be delighted to go without any pay at all!" I may mention that the pay and allowances of a general officer given me by the Victorian Government proved to be sufficient. Although I found the cost of living in Australia to be greater than in England, the amount of entertaining was much less than a district command would have required at home.

CHAPTER XXV.

VICTORIA.

IN October 1889 I embarked with my wife and the eldest and youngest of the family for Australia. The first, our only girl, then saw her native land for the last time. She died very suddenly in Melbourne, and life to us ever since seems somehow different from what it was before,-light went out of it which can

never return.

The first place we arrived at in Australia was Albany, a magnificent harbour, but at that time without even protection against a gunboat. As this was a coalingport of great importance, one of my first cares was to write a memo showing the absolute necessity for at once protecting Albany. Correspondence connected with the defence of Albany and the coaling-port of Thursday Island, on the north-east coast of Australia, had been going on between the Australian colonies and the Colonial Office for ten years, but nothing had come of it. Fortunately there was a strong Minister of Defence at Melbourne, Sir Frederick Sargood, who took the matter up, and finally got all the colonies to agree to furnish the money for building the necessary forts and barracks. The Home Government was to supply the guns, the colonies providing everything

Ꮓ

else, including garrisons. All this took some time, but the final result was my appointment as president of a joint Naval and Military Committee, which visited Albany and Thursday Island to select sites for the batteries and barracks. The guns ordered, or rather their hydro-pneumatic elevating carriages, which the colonies had asked for ten years previously, were not the proper ones for the high sites we had chosen, and were therefore objected to. On this the colonies were told that they must take what had been ordered; but when it was quietly represented that, if the proper guns and carriages were not sent, the colonies might stop the supply required for the construction of the batteries, we got the guns with the right carriages, and long before I left Australia the guns were in the forts and the garrisons in the barracks of both Thursday Island and Albany.

Melbourne, with its broad streets at right angles to each other, had a look of New York about it; which city it also resembled, particularly in Collins Street, with its banks, insurance offices, and other fine mercantile buildings. The crowd of busy energetic pedestrians hurrying from office or store showed very plainly that, although Melbourne is at times decidedly hot, it is a very long way from the take-it-easy life of the tropics. At one season of the year, however, not only Melbourne people, but also all who can leave their stations up-country and come south, take a week's holiday. Business of every sort is suspended during the Cup Week. To most English men and women a racecourse, with its attendant objectionable sights and sounds, is not particularly attractive; but in Victoria things are very differently managed. We arrived at the commencement of the Cup Week, and not knowing

AUSTRALIAN RACE MEETING.

355

what the Melbourne races really were, we declined at first to attend; but on being told how very different they were from meetings at home, we went. The governor drove down to the course-a few miles from the city-in a well-turned-out four-in-hand: there were some other carriages, but the rest of the world went by train, the railway service being very well arranged. Arrived at Flemington, we found, instead of the usual rough racecourse scene, a magnificent lawn on which a great crowd of ladies and gentlemen were promenading. Had it not been for the course and the mass of people on the other side of the rails, we might have supposed ourselves at a large gardenparty. The stands and refreshment-rooms behind the lawn were such as can be seen only at Melbourne; and there were other excellent refreshment-buildings for those who could not afford grand-stand prices. The dirty refreshment - tents and booths of the English racecourse were entirely absent, as was also the yelling bookie—that is, as far as the grand stand and lawn were concerned. That necessary fraternity for people who wish to get rid of their money were kept in a separate enclosure, quite out of sight and hearing of the stand and lawn. The well-behaved crowd on the other side of the enclosure and rails was estimated at over 50,000. I purposely walked about amongst it, and not one single foul expression did I hear. Could the same be said of any public race meeting in England? It must be an unpleasant shock to an Australian who, on visiting England, ventures to the saturnalia of the Derby.

Our first introduction to Australian life was decidedly pleasant, as was also the following small but, nevertheless, telling incident. Soon after my