To which country is Elspeth Huxley referring in the following quote
"This country is a rim containing people round a withered hub

Hi lundy-ga,

Thanks for your question. The answer is indeed Australia. 

The complete quotation is, "and in Sydney was the sun . . .  From it
[the sun] springs the whole Australian temperament . . . This country
is a rim containing people round a withered hub and fringed by over
12,000 miles of coast lapped or pounded by oceans."

"Their Shining Eldorado: A Journey through Australia," by Elspeth
Huxley. New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1967, p. 17.

Search strategy:
Going off the suggestions provided by pafalafa-ga and the others from
previously posted questions, I went to the library and found a book
Huxley had written about Australia.

I hope this answers your question. If you need additional information,
please ask for clarification before rating my answer and I will do my
best to assist you.

Regards,
luciaphile-ga

This has already been asked at
http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=133527 and
http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=125447.
answerfinder-ga

Hello there Lundy.  I've been waiting to see what the answer is to
your query (as I'm sure you have) but to no avail, so I thought I'd
have a look around.  I think the answer is probably Tasmania, but I'm
too cheap to find out for sure.

A search on the terms "withered hub" and "huxley" at
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/archives/
comes up with the following:

1 document matched your query "withered hub and huxley".  
DOWN WONDER     
THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN , 10-06-1995 , Ed: 0 , Pg: R02 , 2079 words , 
YEARS ago I heard that the bloke who inspired Charles Dickens's Fagin
had been transported to Tasmania and had died at Port Arthur. Wrong.
He died in Hobart in September 1850, in the custody of Judah Solomon,
a convict who'd made good and donated th...


That's all there was, but the full article apparently contains the
Huxley quote, and the context seems to be Tasmania.  You can access
the full text of the article at the site above, for a fee.  Happy New
Year, and good luck with the London Times travel contest!

On the other hand, she seemed to have a fairly positive impression of
Tasmania:

"I found the guardians of the island's fauna more hopeful than in any
of the mainland States. This is because Tasmania is not yet over-run
by humans. There is still living-space for kangaroos and wallabies, as
well as for the smaller marsupials....Tasmania also pursues an
enlightened policy in regard to its National Parks, not to be confused
with fauna sanctuaries. Laws to protect some of the island's natural
beauties go back to 1915 when the Scenery Preservation Act was passed.
It was many years before the rest of Australia woke up to the need.
This Act must have been one of the first seeds of National Parks to be
planted anywhere outside the United States."
http://www.tourismtasmania.com.au/corp/media/quotes/quotes_explore.html