All the stories that are told of the industry of savage life are pure inventions, and if labor be, as we are often told, the truest nobility, we ought to hear no more of the “noble savage.” Consistently with this idea, the native Australian’s only idea of the hut is a place where he can sit and gorge himself with food, and lie down to sleep after his enormous meal. A fence a yard in height is therefore quite good enough for him, and, as long as no rain falls, he thinks a roof to be a needless expenditure of labor. In the illustration referred to we have an example of an encampment on which the natives have bestowed rather more care than usual, and have actually taken the pains to form the branches into rude huts. The spears, shields, and other weapons of the natives are seen scattered about, while round the fire sit or lie the men who have satisfied their hunger. The reader will perceive that from a little distance such an encampment would be almost invisible; and, indeed, except by the thin smoke of the fire, the most practised eye can scarcely detect the spot where natives are encamping. Even the spears which project above the bush huts look at a little distance merely like dried sticks; and, if the inhabitants be very anxious to escape observation, they establish their encampment in a retired spot, where the surrounding objects harmonize as closely as possible with the rude shelter which answers all their needs. In many places the natives construct a habitation similar in principle, but differing in structure. Should the locality abound in the eucalypytus, or stringy-bark tree, the natives make a hut altogether different in appearance. With wonderful dexterity, they strip off the bark of the tree in large flakes, six or seven feet in length. A few large branches of trees are then laid on the ground, so that they form a rough sort of framework, and upon these branches the flakes of bark are laid. An hour’s labor will make one of these huts, so that the natives have really no inducement to take any care of them. Even the very best hut which a native Australian ever made would be inferior to the handiwork of an English boy of ten years old. For my own part, I remember building far better huts than those of the Australians, though I was at the time much below ten years of age, and had gained all my knowledge of practical architecture from “Sandford and Merton.”