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Like
all Australians, the city people are eager sportsmen. Public tennis
courts, golf links, and bowling greens are found in all cities, and
swimming, surf-riding, and yachting are popular throughout the year
in cities near the sea. Horse-racing is very popular. Spectator
sports are well attended,
and many county people come into the cities to watch amateur and professional
football. cricket, and tennis matches, Attendance of more than 100,000
is not unusual at an Australian Rules football grand final.
In addition, symphony concerts, operas, and other musical events are
held in the larger cities, Most large cities have their own ballet
companies and art galleries. Australia has produced many world-famous
artists, dancers, actors, singers, and musicians.
Although
the great majority of Australians live in cities among skyscrapers,
steel mills, automobile plants, and busy factories, there are still
lands in the north and center occupied only by the aborigines, Australia’s
first inhabitants, many of whom still cling
to their Stone Age culture. They total over 100,000, but
fewer than a third of these live the nomadic tribal life of their
ancestors. The aborigines belong to a separate ethnological group
and are known as Australoids. It is uncertain how long they have been
in Australia. Before European influence reached them, they wore no
clothes, built no permanent dwellings, cultivated no crops, and lived
as nomadic hunters. And now the Australian aborigines live mainly
inland and in the remote northern coastal areas.
The differences between country
and city living are rapidly disappearing as communications bring the
city closer to the country and give the country easier access
to the city. in spite of the marked increase in manufacturing and
secondary industries, primary products are still the largest source
of export income, and the range
of Australian pastoral and agricultural industries is immense. |
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spectator