136 AUSTRALIAN PICTURES. 



Looking at its vast size, and the dispersion of its thin population — the 

 whole not equal to that of a Melbourne suburb — Western Australia can only 

 be described by one image — it is the giant skeleton of a colony. 



A clever Yankee once described the colony of Western Australia as having 

 been run through an hour-glass. The American, however, possessed the 

 failing common to many humorists : he economised the truth for the sake of 

 uttering a smart saying. It is only to be expected that in a country like 

 Western Australia, possessing an area of a million .square miles, that sandy 

 tracts are to be met with ; but to assert that the colony is a vast sandy 

 waste — a Sahara — is to convey a wrong impression of its physical features. 

 In the far north the richest of Australian tropical vegetation exists ; fine 

 rivers flow through tracts of splendidly grassed territory, and the conformation 

 of the country is bold. It is farther south, where the tropical growth gives 

 place to level plains and bush vegetation, that the dreary sandy plains exist 

 in parts, though not to the extent sometimes imagined. 



Along the south-west coast, however, where the splendid forests of jarrah 

 and other varieties of eucalypts are found, the soil is richer and better 

 watered, but the prevalence of dangerous poison plants renders it less 

 useful for pastoral purposes. Some districts are infested with strong quick- 

 growing bushes, the juices of which are fatal to animal life. There are no 

 less than fourteen known varieties of these plants, but only four are commonly 

 pointed out. These are the York -road, the heart-leaf, the rock, and the box- 

 scrub — the Gastrolobium bilobum, the Gastrolobium calycinum, Gastrolobium 

 callistachys, and the Gastrolobium anylobiaides. The most common is the York- 

 road plant, a low bushy scrub, with narrow fresh green leaves, and a light 

 coloured stem. After a bush fire this plant is the first to spring up. Its 

 young shoots have a particularly green and attractive appearance ; the sheep 

 feed eagerly upon it, swell to a great size, and die in a few hours. A single 

 mouthful at this period is sufficient to destroy them. The plant is also very 

 dangerous when in blossom, as then also the sap is fresh and plentiful. 

 In summer, when it is dried up, the sheep do not care about it, and may 

 even be fed on country where it is not very thick. It is destructive to 

 horned cattle, but it does not affect horses much. Millions of acres are 

 overrun with this poison shrub, which, however, when cleared, may be 

 profitably occupied. For instance, in the mahogany forests about the Darling 

 ranges, there is a coarse grass growing which would support sheep well, 

 but, in consequence of the prevalence of poison, at present the land 

 remains unproductive and unoccupied. As one goes north the poison 

 plants disappear, and the flocks which Victoria and Queensland and New 

 South Wales are now pouring into the new pastures there feed as securely 

 as they would in the Western District of Victoria, or on the famous 

 Darling Downs. 



The city of Perth is built in a picturesque situation above the broad 



