#4. Sydney Exhibition.#--So on every hand the colony made progress. Her railways expanded in scores of branches; her telegraph lines stretched out their arms in every direction; her sheep increased so that now there are nearly sixty millions of them; her wheat and maize extended to more than half a million of acres; her orangeries and vineyards and orchards, her mines of coal and tin, and her varied and extensive manufactures, make her people, now numbering a million, one of the most prosperous on the face of the earth. Her pride was pardonable when, in 1879, she held an international exhibition to compare her industries side by side with those of other lands, so as to show how much she had done and to discover how much she had yet to learn. A frail, but wonderfully pretty building rapidly arose on the brow of the hill between Sydney Cove and Farm Cove; and that place, the scene of so much squalor and misery a hundred years before, became gay with all that decorative art could do, and busy with daily throngs of gratified visitors. The place had a most distinguished appearance; seen from the harbour, its dome and fluttering flags rose up from among the luxuriant foliage of the Botanic Gardens, as if boldly to proclaim that New South Wales had completed the period of her infancy and was prepared to take her place among the nations as one grown to full and comely proportions. When the building had served its purpose, the people were too fond and too proud of it to dismantle and destroy it, but unfortunately it was not long after swept away by an accidental fire. In 1885, the colony was stirred by a great wave of enthusiasm when it was known that its Government had sent to England the offer of a regiment of soldiers to fight in the Soudan side by side with British troops. The offer was accepted, and some seven or eight hundred soldiers, well equipped and full of high hopes, sailed for Africa. The war was too soon over for them to have any chance of displaying what an Australian force may be like upon a battle-field. There were many persons who held that the whole expedition was a mistake. But it had one good effect; for it showed that, for the present at least, the Australian colonies are proud of their mother-country; that their eyes are fondly turned to her, to follow all her destinies in that great career which she has to accomplish as the leading nation of the earth; and that if ever she needed their help, assistance would flow spontaneously from the fulness of loving hearts. The idea of this expedition and its execution belonged principally to C. B. Dalley. But the great leader of New South Wales during the last quarter of a century, and the most zealous worker for its welfare and prosperity, has been the veteran statesman Sir Henry Parkes. CHAPTER XXII. VICTORIA, 1855-1890.