IOO 



AUSTRALIAN PICTURES. 



is the centre. If you referred to the inland portion, you would speak of the 

 ' far north ; ' and again, if you meant the Port Darwin — Gulf of Carpentaria 

 country — you would use the term ' Northern Territory.' The original South 

 Australia is first to be noticed. 



No part of Australia is more strongly marked with Australian peculiarities 

 than this. The Murray is the only river, and this stream brings down the 

 waters of the ranges of the south-eastern colonies ; the other streams are 

 merely courses in which, under favourable conditions, water may be looked for, 



Waterfall Gully, South Australia. 



and not otherwise. The ranges are few in number, and are of no great 

 elevation. But the grass plains and the scrub plains are immense. Gazing 

 round from an eminence, the impression produced by the equal height 

 of the vegetation, and the dull glaucous colour of the foliage, is that you are 

 looking upon the open rolling illimitable ocean. South Australia contains 

 whole principalities of the ordinary park-like bush of Australia ; the eucalypts 

 standing in grass without any undergrowth, either singly or in clumps, as 

 though planted by a landscape gardener. If an expert were whisked during 

 his sleep — like another Bedreddin Hassan— and dropped from Europe, Asia, 



