man of distinguished ancestry, noted for his fine breeding, and has been so kindly handled that he is perfectly safe. Were it not for his horns, his nose, and his feet, we might think him merely a bundle of wool. His fleece lies upon him in rolls and folds, the skin apparently wrinkling to make it hold more. It is so long and thick on his head that we see only the tips of his ears; his eyes are far back of those holes in the wool. The fleece hangs down from the under parts of the body, covering the legs clear to the hoofs. We poke our fingers into the wool. We can not reach the skin without pressing the knuckles far in. How greasy it feels! It is dirty and gray outside, but when we pull it apart it is the color of cream. This sheep has more than forty pounds of wool on him, and his owner would not sell him for three thousand dollars.

The common sheep of Australia, however, have only a very few pounds of wool, often not more than five or six. They can be bought for about the same prices that such sheep bring in our country. We can easily see what a difference it makes if each sheep yields much wool or little. Take, for instance, that squatter over there who has fifty thousand sheep. If each of his flock can be made to yield one pound more at a shearing, he will have fifty thousand pounds more wool to sell every year; so you see how important it is to have good sheep, and why the people pay so much for them.

Leaving the sheep show, we visit one of the warehouses of Sydney, where the wool is brought in from the country to be shipped off to Europe. It is on the edge of the harbor and of easy access to the ships. We go from floor to floor of the vast building, making our way in and out

through the wool, which is stored here by the thousands of bales. Each bale is about as high as our heads. It is wrapped in yellow bagging and weighs about three hundred and ninety pounds.

Some of the bales have burst open, and the white wool seems to be pouring out upon the floor. Each bale is

marked with the name of the station from which it comes. In some places men are tearing the bales apart and sorting the wool, and in others buyers are examining the piles in order to make bids upon them. Each bidder takes up the wool in his hands and pulls it apart. We do likewise and then throw the stuff back on the pile. How dirty it is! Our hands shine as though coated with vaseline, and our cuffs are soiled with the grease. The sheep are

not washed before shearing, and the wool is shipped without cleaning.

We ask one of the buyers, a man dressed in overalls and a long linen coat buttoned tight up the front, what the wool brings. He replies that the price varies according to the grade, quality, and state of the market. He shows us that it makes a difference also from what part of the sheep the wool comes, some bales being composed only of the shearings of the legs and tails, while others come from the sides and under parts of the body. Fine wool brings twice as much as coarse wool, and it takes an expert to know just what is best.

After the wool is sold, it is exported to Europe in steamships and sailing vessels. The sailing vessels go around the Cape of Good Hope, while the steamers usually pass through the Suez Canal. The shortest distance from Australia to the European markets is about eleven thousand miles, and the freight rate for carrying wool there is sometimes as low as one fourth of a cent per pound. It takes less than four pounds of wool to make a suit of clothes for a man, so that for one cent the ships carry enough wool for a suit from Australia to London. This is one of the wonders of commerce.

Let us go out in the country for a look at the sheep in the fields. One of the principal squatters has asked us to visit his station, and we gladly accept the invitation. We leave in the evening and ride all night on the cars. When we awake we are passing through great pasture fields, some containing large droves of cattle and others thousands of sheep. Now and then we go by fields of wheat, rye, barley, or oats, or through forests of eucalyptus and other

Australian trees; but nearly everywhere there are sheep, sheep, sheep! We see single flocks which contain as many as two thousand animals, and at one place ride several miles by a drove of sheep on its way from one station to another.

There are but few farm buildings, and no great barns such as we have in our north central states. The weather

is so mild that the grass is good all the year round and the sheep need no other food. They require no shelter, living out in the fields from one year's end to the other. The houses we see are chiefly one-story structures, painted yellow and roofed with galvanized iron. Some of them have iron chimneys, and nearly all have iron tanks on their porches to catch the rain water as it comes from the roofs. Australia is a dry country, and in many places every drop of water that can be so caught is saved.

At last we reach the end of our railroad journey, where we find riding horses which take us across the country to our squatter friend's home. It is a big building with many

smaller ones about it. Some of them are offices, stores, blacksmith and carpenter shops, and the others are the homes of the men.

It takes a large number of employees to run such a station, and the home settlement is almost a village. The house of the squatter is a one-story building, roofed with iron, with many rooms opening out upon porches, with a large parlor and all the surroundings and furniture of a comfortable home. There is a cricket ground at one side of it and grounds for croquet and golf.

There are also great stables with horses for pleasure and work. The station is miles in extent, and almost every man on it has a horse. The sheep are kept in fenced fields and hence do not need shepherds, as our great flocks on the Rocky Mountain plateaus do; but it is necessary to have boundary riders, men who go about the fields every few days to see that the fences are up and that the sheep are all right and that they have plenty of water.

We spend some time at the station, going about with the squatter and the men, learning much about sheep and wool raising. We see them shear sheep at a neighboring farm forty miles off. A large gang of men does the work, cutting off the wool so fast that one man shears one hundred or more sheep in a day.. The men are paid about five cents for each sheep, and their earnings depend on the number they shear.

When the sheep come into the hands of the shearers they look fat and gray, but when shorn they seem to have shrunk and their coats are snow-white.

At another place we see men shearing sheep by ma