Transferring ourselves now to the night mail, and awaking with the broad
daylight of a sunny morning between Yass and Goulburn, we looked out
upon a country all white with hoar frost, while our carriage windows had
an inside coating of ice. This recalled an inspiring discussion at the
Chamber of Commerce dinner a fortnight before, on my introducing the
question of the snow and the highest civilization it symbolized. I had
said that Victoria as well as Tasmania presented the significant snow.
Mr. Service, the leader of the federation movement, alike intercolonial
and imperial, corrected me by substituting Australian for Victorian
snow. But Mr. Macdonald Patterson, of Queensland, extended the snow line
well over even northern New South Wales, as he told us of a heavy
snowstorm he had encountered when travelling south from Brisbane, and
which lay so thickly upon the ground as to tempt the passengers to a
vigorous snowballing, which latterly concentrated upon the railway guard
for his grudging attempt to end the sport by ringing his signal bell.
But this snow and cold, however favourable to ultimate civilization,
were by no means a pleasure just at the moment, and I had to put on the
very warmest clothing I ever heaped upon me in an English or Scotch
winter. Nor did I escape a severe cold withal, which is only now
disappearing under the genial influence of the balmy air of Queensland,
which, now as I write, comes to us off the land towards the end of our
voyage from Sydney to Brisbane (19th-21st August). We are just passing
the South Queensland boundary of 30 degrees latitude, and as a few more
hours will land us amidst troops of new friends at Brisbane, I expedite
my work, fearing that, as at Melbourne, our brief space of time will be
otherwise occupied.