LITERATURE. 75 



Oh, wliat a sij^lit it must luive been! White swans almost inmunerable, openiuf^ and 

 flapping their wings as soft to the eye as the chalice of an Arum ; bUie, red, and white lilies, 

 opening under the radiancy of the sun; white sails, cockatoos of all kinds, butterflies and 

 flying flshcs, mirroring themselves in the deep and transparent water ; voices of men, chatter 

 of women, admiration of children at the sight of every new thing, songs of birds, joy of 

 all, flUing the air with their tremulous waves and blending themselves with the harmonies 

 of the land, which whisperetl all the eniotions they had gatlu>red among the palms, the odorant 

 fruits, the suave flowers, and the superb shiny banana trees with fruit as sweet in its fragrance 

 as it is in giving strength to the mother who milks, or to the child who has been taken from 

 her breast. 



A country teeming witli all the luxuries Nature could alford from the most fantastic 

 flowers, among which fluttered birds of every colour, to the most varied fruits, some lying 

 on the ground in the meailows, others decorating the arches formed by the branches of 

 gigantic trees, here almost hidden by the intermingling creepers, there hanging in bunches 

 at arm length, giant ferns seeming to have grouped together on the hill slopes in order to afford 

 man a shelter against the dew of the night and the burning kiss of the mid-day sun. Abund- 

 ance and plenty everywhere, and comfort, happiness, and good-will reigning supreme. 

 Covetousness, hypocrisy, lying, mine and thine, were then unknown ; everyone was a law 

 unto himself, and Nature a lavish and tender mother to all. 



.\las, alas, my poor land ! What has befallen thee? I last thou sunk low enough 

 under the curse of degradation? Thou art like a deserted flre-place on the heath, where only 

 a few blackened stones remain to inform the passer-by tiiat in some past season was held 

 there a mighty corroboree of a tribe which is now uu more, a tribe- which has been carried 

 away by the angry winds with the ashes of the last lire ; a heath where it would be impossible 

 to find even a bleached bone, cleared, as it has been, by the crows, the eagle-hawks, and the 

 dingoes. 



Well ! Well ! It is said that the wise man lets the past rest in its grave, and that 

 the memory of lost happiness is a torturing scourge to the fallen one. Be things as they 

 are since we cannot alter them 



Ages and ages of that happiness had been bestowed on our forefathers, who enjoyed 

 it in its fulness, and lived a life of purity and contentment without the shadow of a vice or 

 the idea of a sin. 



One night, after everybody had as usual retired under the verdant roof of the ferns 

 to enjoy among their colonnades refreshing slumber, an extraordinary and terrifying noise 

 was heard, and everyone on awakening beheld the usually placid roof of heaven offering a 

 spectacle never heard of before, never dreamed of, and they were all struck with stupor. 

 Bent on an eastward course it seemed that all the stars of the sky were madly rushing, inter- 

 crossing, knocking against each other, and their mighty progress was producing such an 

 awful noise that even from here it was like the roaring of ten mighty oceans. 



In the white light produced by the rush of so many stars everybody looked aghast, 

 and the heart of each was filled with terror ; everyone's eyes were intently fixed on the heavens, 

 and no one dared to utter a w-ord, all — -men, women, old people, children — remained silent, 

 motionless, terrified, till the sun appeared on the opposite side of the lake. But though 

 so eagerly longed for, his appearance tended to increase rather than to soothe their fears. 

 He, The Great Dispeller, the only giver of Life; He, too, was obscured, and it was only now 

 and then that the bright Ijeams of his great eye could pierce the dense crowd, the enormous 

 mass of stars which were floating round him and appeared dark as the resin of bulrushes 

 in the limbo of his beauty. 



Great was the consternation, deep the sorrow, unfathomable the terror. The wisdom 

 of the old had vanished, the hopes of the young were blasted, and all stood haggard. 



Many a long day, many a dreary night thus passed by, begun in expectation, closed in 

 bitter disappointment. Xo one was able to account for the misfortune, and as it often happens 



