Australian Life (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Australian Life I was walking along George Street, Brisbane, last Monday in the afternoon when I suddenly ran upon my friend Power. Power is a man worth knowing. I suppose no one has been along the Australian coast, from Perth to Port Darwin, more often than he has. Is there a little port-town all round that he has not been in? Is there a river, navigable or unnavigable, that finds its way into Australian seas that he has not floated on? His stock of tales is the largest and best of anyone I know, and he has a sort of humorous kindliness about him, a genuine humanistic tolerance and appreciation, which has made him the friend of all sorts and conditions of men, women, and animals. He has the unctuous pleasure of discovering and understanding every oddity, and the light of this pleasure beams up in his eyes and on his lips and in his whole face as he sits opposite some abnormal piece of humanity in a cosy comer, just as when he pauses from his submarine work in his...