Not far from the coast of America is Cuba, and here bullock wagons suitable to the tropical climate of the island are used, with shady roofs made of palm-leaves. These are driven by negroes, who urge on the animals with long, iron-pointed goads. The reins are attached to the ends of the bullock's horns. [Illustration: CUBAN VOLANTE.] In the streets of Havana, the capital of Cuba, hooded carriages called volantes, or kitrins, are seen. They are drawn by two horses or mules, one being harnessed between the shafts while the other is outside on the left. Sometimes three horses are driven abreast. These vehicles are very curious in appearance, for they have enormous wheels and shafts that are over fifteen feet in length. The horses are ridden by negro postilions, who sometimes wear gorgeous scarlet liveries ornamented with gold lace, and jack-boots that reach almost to their waists. From Cuba we can travel east or west, sailing either round the Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, but whichever direction we choose our ship comes at last to the great island continent of Australia. There we find, in the large towns such as Sydney and Melbourne, tramways, motor-cars, and even the old familiar hansom cabs of the London streets. Australia has not any strange vehicles of its own, for when discovered it was inhabited only by savages, and it had no animals that could be used as beasts of burden. These latter have, however, been imported and acclimatized, and now horses and cattle may be seen everywhere, while, if we travel across the sandy plains of the west, we meet long lines of heavily laden camels that look as if they had marched straight out of the Sahara or the Arabian deserts. [Illustration: AUSTRALIAN BOUNDARY RIDER.] The horses of Australia are now famous all over the world, and the Colonial riders are as celebrated. Indeed, in many districts men almost live in the saddle, for in the great southern continent estates are measured not by acres but by hundreds of miles, and the shepherds and boundary riders often have to ride long distances in their day's work. [Illustration: COUNTRY COACH, AUSTRALIA.] An Australian horseman "up country" is a very picturesque figure with his slouched felt hat, his rolled scarlet blanket, and the tin billy-can dangling from his saddle. There are not, as yet, many railways in the more thinly inhabited districts of Australia, and travellers drive in coaches drawn by two or four horses. Other vehicles are the buggies, light two-wheeled conveyances which can be used where there are few roads and the tracks through the bush are rough and steep. CHAPTER VIII TRAVELLING IN THE WILDS