In the south-east, towards the great Australian Bight, there is a change. There is much limestone country here, with pasture, but the water sinks away through the porous rock. Access, too, is difficult, owing to the cliff barrier stretching for fifteen hundred miles unbroken by any stream or gap. Here is a view of 60 these cliffs; sometimes they come down to the sea, sometimes they lie some distance inland, but they are always present. Here, too, we find the water, which sank into the plateau above, breaking 61 out at the foot of the cliffs and giving us unexpected vegetation.
One part of West Australia we have not visited, that beyond the Tropic to the north. Here is a moderate rainfall similar to that in the Northern Territory and in Queensland; while in the extreme north we meet the heavy downpour of the Tropics. Much of it is well suited for cattle, but at present it is hardly touched, and it is separated from the populous district of the south by a wide stretch of dry and inhospitable country.
We now return to the east and leave Hobart, with a westerly wind astern, and following the course of the great Dutch navigator Tasman, steam south-eastward across the deep sea which still bears his name. We are bound for the southern end of New Zealand.
The islands of New Zealand are often compared to the British Islands, but we must be careful not to press this comparison too far. We must notice that their position on the globe corresponds not to that of Britain, but to that of Italy; while the long toe to the north is even nearer to the equator than the toe of Italy. In shape, too, the main islands remind us somewhat of Italy; for Cook Strait is shallow, and we may think of them as forming one continuous land mass. We may notice also that Stewart Island lies on a bank which extends from the mainland southwards as far as the Auckland Islands. There are similar shallows to the northward, with island points upon them projecting above the surface of the sea; so that we may think of the whole area as one great bank below the water, with the higher parts showing as land, while east and west of it lie the deep abysses of the Tasman Sea and the Pacific. So though we have at first sight a group of scattered islands, they have a certain unity if we look at the under-sea platform on which they stand. There are also certain scattered islands, more remote from the New Zealand group, but dependent politically on the Dominion. Of these the chief are the Chatham Islands, 500 miles east of Lyttelton, the Kermadecs, 600 miles north-east of Auckland, and beyond them the Cook Islands, far out in the Pacific.