At the Wallaroo mines I found a set of black natives employed on the surface work, at regular wages of 4_s._ 4_d._ a day, or 26_s._ a week. There were about ten of them, and I was told that they had been there for three months, and had been as regular in their attendance as white men. This was the only instance I found in Australia in which I myself came upon any number of these aborigines in regular and voluntary employment. I have seen a man at one station and a woman at another as to whom I have been told that they were regarded as part of the regular establishment,--but it always seemed that their work was of a fitful kind. I learned also that in one or two of the colonies, in Western Australia and in Queensland, they are drilled and used as policemen for the control of their own countrymen;--but such service as this I can hardly regard as steady, regular work. Here the experiment was said to have answered for the period that I have named. I came across one of these men, who was supposed to be a little ill, and therefore not on duty at the moment. He was dressed in a very genteel manner,--with clothes softer and finer than a white miner would wear even when on a holiday. He was very gentle and civil, but not very communicative. He bought clothes with his money, he said, and food,--and the rest he put away. He did not resent the impertinence of my inquiries, but was not quite willing to gratify my curiosity. My desire was to learn whether he had realised the advantage of laying up and permanently possessing property. I doubt whether he had, although he did mutter something as to putting away his wages. He seemed much more willing to talk about the cold in the head under which he had been suffering than of his general condition in life. At the smelting works of Wallaroo men were earning higher wages than in the mines;--something like an average of £2 10_s._ a week;--but their hours of labour were longer. The miners work day and night, by shifts of eight hours each. The smelters work also throughout the twenty-four hours,--but they work only in two sets. I should think that twelve hours by a furnace must be worse than eight below ground. The smelters, however, probably do not keep at it during the whole time. The smelters I found had, almost to a man, come from Wales, whereas so many of the miners were Cornish men as to give to Moonta and Wallaroo the air of Cornish towns. Coal for the smelting is brought from Newcastle, in New South Wales; but the inferior ore is sent to other smelting works at Newcastle,--so that the ships which bring the coal may go back with freights. The copper therefore is sent to the European markets, not only from Port Wallaroo, but also from Newcastle.