On his return home, Cook gave such a glowing account of the great island that the English Government forthwith sent out a body of soldiers to take possession of the country and to make settlements. Because it is well watered, the southeastern part was selected as best adapted for colonization. For a long time this part of Australia was utilized chiefly as a penal colony, but the fruitful land and salubrious climate quickly attracted free emigrants from England. Then gold was discovered, and thousands of people rushed to the new Eldorado, not only from Great Britain but from all parts of the world. Almost in a twinkling it changed from "our remotest colony" to a great country producing annually millions of wealth. So far as its surface features are concerned, one may regard Australia as a continent not quite so large as the United States. The eastern part is diversified by low ranges of mountains fantastically scored and carved by rivers which are swift and impassable torrents during the season of rains, and trickling streams, or dry washes, the rest of the year. This is the region that has produced a wealth of gold and wool and a stock of hardy people that for intelligence and strength of character can scarcely be matched elsewhere. The central part of the continent is a dish-shaped table-land. Its surface is sandy here, stony there, but intensely hot and desolate everywhere--desolate of everything that adds to the comfort of man, but full of about everything that contributes to his misery. The "bush" which covers so much of this region is chiefly acacia, and the acacia is chiefly thorns. The rivers that flow into the interior from the coast highlands seem at first sight to be formidable streams so far as appearance goes. One, the Murray, is more than a thousand miles in length. But even the Murray will match the description which an English traveller gave to Platte River--"A mile wide, an inch deep, and bottom on top!" The few lakes of the interior are great "sinks," or marshes, much like Humboldt Sink, in Nevada. They are shallow, reed-grown, and briny, and they are bordered by mud flats and quicksands between which there is little to choose. An unfortunate victim will sink in the one quite as quickly as in the other. But even the lakes are gradually going the way of all lakes. In this case, however, their disappearance is due largely to the dust storms that little by little are burying them. Only a very small part of the central region can be reclaimed; for where there is so little rain there can be but little either of surface or of ground waters. During the intensely hot summer season the smaller streams disappear entirely and the larger ones become a succession of stagnant pools along the dry washes. [Illustration: A giant fig-tree, 140 feet in circumference]