TO ADELAIDE BY TRAIN 33 



have the most comfortable sleeper the train can provide, rest 

 is impossible, and you lie looking out on to the fleeting moon- 

 lit scene, longing for the daylight, that you may see more 

 clearly what manner of country this is through which you are 

 flying. 



And when at last the dawn comes creeping, your ask your- 

 self, " Is this the land they call monotonous?" 



Or at least I did ; for the dawn showed me a scene which 

 rilled me with delight. Close by the rail ran a red, red road, 

 and beyond it a clump of white-limbed gums flung their long, 

 purple, morning shadows over a green grass carpet. It was 

 a fairy scene, and the flocks of parrots, that swept through the 

 trees, looked like birds from the fairy world, as their gorgeous 

 colours flashed in the sun. Then all too quickly, the mystic 

 wood was past, and a sea of brightest green stretched across 

 the land breaking here and there upon a darker clump. It 

 was a field of young wheat, studded with native pines, which 

 stood as straight and symmetrical as the trees in a Noah's ark. 

 A pair of blue cranes floated lazily overhead, the low sun turn- 

 ing their wings to silver as they flew. Even before they had 

 reached their destination, the wheat fields had given place to 

 stretches of rich, red-brown earth, newly ploughed, where the 

 early-rising magpies were busily looking for their breakfasts. 

 Once or twice a faint echo of their carolling came on the 

 breeze, but the " thumpity-thumpity " of the wheels drowned 

 all other sounds. 



