But this is the darker side of the picture, though in any case the life of a teacher in a back-block school is one of “alarms and excursions” till time and experience have mellowed it. Still, in all but the loneliest places there are certainly compensations. People are hospitable and friendly; distances are ignored; there is generally someone to lend a horse to the teacher, particularly if she be a girl and a good sort, and someone to teach her to ride, too. There are dances and picnics, moonlight picnics being rather a speciality in Australia, and plenty of wholesome fun. People will work incredibly hard on their farms up in the back blocks, particularly if they go in for dairying; but with all this they have a most extraordinary faculty for enjoying themselves, and there is many a morning when the young school teacher will ride home with an admiring escort none too early to start morning school, after dancing gaily all night. Australia is a good place to be young in, particularly when riding through the Bush in the early dawn; the clear air sweet with the scent which the dew brings out from the young gum-leaves and sweet briar; a good horse under you—and “possibilities” of divers sorts riding by your side; while the Bush dances, where there are as often as not six men to every girl—the men dancing together when they can get no better partners—would be a revelation to any English girl used to balls at home, where, though all the arrangements are far more elaborate, partners are few, and it is the men, and not the girls, who can pick and choose.