Visitors in increasing numbers, journeying across the Pacific and from the Old World, are to-day discovering for themselves the size and beauty of the great cities of Australia, the oldest of continents geologically, in civilization the newest They are rather amazed to find in Australia all the amenities of the Older-established countries, the tall and handsome buildings, the tree-lined boulevards, and the beautiful garden homes bathed im brilliant sunshine. And it is the striking contrast between the highly civilized foreground of the coastal cities and the wild background of the bush, where everything is new and strange, so unlike anything in any other land, that makes Australia one of the most appealing countries in a travel-loving world that seeks insistently the new.
From cobalt skies, the brilliant sunshine filters through the long, pendant leaves of the giant eucalypts, to shine on the lesser growths of golden wattles, green musk and dogwood bushes with their little white flowers, to pierce the deep shadows of fern gullies and light the delicate fronds that hang over little crystal-clear streams. That is the Australian "bush", the haunt of chattering, gaudy parrots, of crested cockatoos, of gaily-coloured song-birds, of the lyre-bird, greatest of all mimics, and of strange marsupials.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.