Soon sand will cover what remains, and the salt bush will be supreme as aforetime. Kalgoorlie, where the Prince next alighted, proved to be a very different place. Here twenty-four thousand people were living in prosperity, and are likely to continue in this position so long as their reef goes on yielding its harvest of yellow ore. The visitor was welcomed by a big crowd, including a large body of returned soldiers, of whom two wore the Victoria Cross. He was given a cheerful luncheon by the Chamber of Mines, at which the large company present were waited on by daughters of the principal residents, who prepared, cooked and served a banquet which could not have been surpassed anywhere. In the course of his reply to a civic address later on, "I am looking forward," the Prince said, "to my stay in this wonderful goldbearing area. I have heard with admiration of the pioneering pluck and engineering skill which have enabled this great city to be built and provided with all the necessary services of a large population in country where water is so scarce. I particularly prize the opportunity of making acquaintance with the people who have placed this miracle of development to the credit of British industry and enterprise. I am also much interested in the terminus of the great Trans-Australian Railway which links you with the eastern States of the Commonwealth." Before leaving Kalgoorlie the Prince visited workings on the forty-foot thick reef of the "golden mile" which is being gradually nibbled away. This reef, since its discovery a quarter of a century ago, has produced seventy-four million sterling of gold. The profit of working it has not kept pace with the increased cost of labour and machinery, but continues to be appreciable, and large masses of paying quartz are still in sight. XVII THE NULLARBOR PLAIN At Kalgoorlie the Prince left the simply equipped three-feet-six-inch gauge of the West Australian State Railway, and continued his journey, at forty miles an hour, on a luxuriously fitted and smooth-running train on the standard gauge of the Trans-Australian line. In charge of the train was Mr. Norris Bell, the eminent engineer who controlled the construction of the line, and is now running it in such a way that, despite almost total absence of local traffic, it is nearly paying its working expenses, a remarkable achievement considering the desolate nature of the country through which it passes. The railway connects the populous States of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, with the vast and potentially rich, but presently undeveloped, western territories. It is one of those imaginative national enterprises undertaken by young countries, and is bound to be justified by the generous policy of land development which usually accompanies, though at present it draws its dividends from the future.